Raijin Thunderkeg
by Jiraiya316Says
Summary: Pressure to succeed either makes or break one's character. With war seemingly always on the horizon, heroes either step up or step aside. Can Naruto rise to what his potential allows whilst also obstaining from his sensei's less than ideal mannerisms along the way?
1. I have often dreamed

A few strings pulled here and a few pulled there. Jiraiya was capable of many things and he showcased just that so he could be the first person that Naruto saw when he woke up. The boy had just come off a long and gruelling mission which ultimately ended in failure. He had failed to rescue his best friend in all but blood; something that Jiraiya himself was all too familiar with.

"Ero-Sennin" Naruto said with joy until his mind caught up with him and he remembered what had happened recently. A sullen look crossed his face.

"Gaki, what happened out there was shit but stewing on what could've or should've happened is not going to change anything. Sasuke is going to be with Orochimaru for the foreseeable future."

"Why!?" Naruto questioned with anger and frustration clearly evident on his face. He was partly angered at his sensei for the way he was dismissing his emotions. He was more angry at the fact that Sasuke would willingly want to go to the man who had killed his grandfather figure but most of all, Naruto was angry at himself for being unable to save his best friend. "Why did he have to go to that damned snake?" Subconsciously, the blonde haired boy knew the answer, he just didn't want to come to terms with it just yet.

"Does it matter Naruto?" Jiraiya quietly asked. It was rare for the man to use Naruto's name. Normally it was some form of insult variant nickname. Upon looking up into the eyes of his sensei, Naruto saw the serious side of Jiraiya which didn't come out often.

"This doesn't leave this room." As Jiraiya said this, he placed his finger on the ground and kanji characters took over the room. Naruto managed to guess that it was some sort of silencing seal.

"Sasuke took matters into his own hands on his quest for power. I can see why he did it. He wanted to become the best so that he could kill his older brother Itachi. He felt that the Leaf Village couldn't provide the training or they weren't going to provide the training that he felt he needed."

"But we could! With Kakashi-sensei and everyone else… we could provide that." Naruto replied, fire slowly coming back into his veins.

"I'm not saying that we couldn't Naruto, I'm just saying that it wouldn't be our highest priority. We would never sacrifice the shinobi required to give the Sasuke the same training that Orochimaru could provide, especially when we are recovering from the recent invasion. At the end of the day the person Sasuke cared about most is himself which isn't wrong to do, he just went about it completely in the wrong way."

"He was being selfish though! There were so many people back here who cared about him!"

 _Namely me, he was my best friend!_ Jiraiya heard the unspoken message.

"I understand that Naruto, believe me I do… He made a decision that he is going to have to live with. Being selfish though isn't necessarily a bad thing though. If you want to become Hokage, you are going to have also become selfish."

Offended at the comment made by his sensei, Naruto very much so wanted some clarification! "What! What do you mean becoming the Hokage means that I have to be selfish!? They are the most selfless person, looking after and protecting the village!"

"They do." Jiraiya nodded which only served to confuse his godson. "That's not what I said though. I said to become the Hokage they have to be selfish. If you want to become the best, then you are going to have to be selfish and put focus on yourself to a degree. It takes a great amount of time to develop the skills required to become the Hokage and you will have to make sacrifices on occasions.

I'm not saying that you would have to lose the friends that you have made but you're going to have to focus on yourself first if you ever want the chance to become Hokage." The Sannin said, having a rough idea on what was going through his godson's mind.

It was quiet but Naruto was dead serious when he spoke. "Train me." Naruto's blue eyes stared long and hard into Jiraiya's black orbs.

A smirk plastered Jiraiya's face. He knew what Naruto meant but he wanted to hear it. "Whaddya think I've been doing Gaki? Haven't you realised how strong you've gotten since before your chunin exam finals? I've taught you the rasengan and the summoning jutsu for crying out loud!"

The look on Naruto's face did not waiver one bit. He definitely knew how much pervy sage's training had been helping. For the first time ever, Naruto finally felt like that he was closing the gap with his measuring stick that was Sasuke. For the blonde, it highlighted how good of a sensei was. _He even trained the freaking fourth Hokage! If I could get him to train me and I take it seriously, then who knows how strong I could become!_

 _There is also the Akatsuki who are all S-ranked…_

"Train me Jiraiya-sensei. Please."

"Alright kid but don't think for a second that this is going to be easy. I'm going to make our previous training look like child's play. After all my reputation is on the line and I might as well make two Hokage's!" Jiraiya mentally took a picture on the face of Naruto and couldn't help but wish Minato and Kushina were here to see this.

He knew that he hadn't been the best godfather the past 13 years and it was moments like this that Jiraiya had been missing out on.

 _No more. I need to be there more for Naruto._ He didn't have much else going on for him people wise in his life and here was lady luck giving him one chance to right all of his wrongs as a person.

"On one condition though." The side splitting grin on the face of Naruto receded. He waited.

"I'm going to be out of the village for the next three years working on my spy network for the village. I'm not going to be coming back at all during this time."

Naruto paused. That was definitely a big condition. He would be leaving his friends and more importantly his support network for 3 years. One thing ran through his mind though. "Sometimes you have to be selfish right?" Naruto questioned with a tiny smirk on the corner of his lips.

Jiraiya nodded. Internally however, he was surprised. _I thought he would have put up more of a fight when I told him he wouldn't be coming back for 3 years. It's good to see him maturing a bit._

"Good. I've got a few things to do but in 3 days we will be leaving the village." It will give you time to say goodbye to your friends. See ya soon kid." With that said, Jiraiya left the room and the seal on the floor disappeared.

 _I guess a lot of things are going to change. I wonder what the village will be like when I get back? One thing is for certain is that I'm going to get strong dattebayo!_

The blonde haired boy didn't know what to expect from the future. He liked it that way.

Shortly Jiraiya had left, the door to his room had opened. This time however it was Shikamaru who opened it. "I see, well at least everyone is okay." Naruto said, trying to find the positives in the outcome despite the situation.

"So Sasuke…?" Shikamaru asked, letting his question trail off. What neither of the two boys knew was that Sakura was on the other side of the door, listening in on the conversation. She had yet to hear the outcome of the mission.

"Yeah… He's gone." Naruto dejectedly said. In an instant, Sakura was crushed. Reality was setting in hard and fast. Sasuke was not coming back. Not now, maybe not ever. Limply, the hand that was about to open the door fell down by her side and hung.

 _But he's Sasuke, we were supposed to go on a date! How could he do this to the team!? How could he do this to me!? To Kakashi-sensei, to Naruto!?_

Before she could properly process the information overload that she had happened to just stumble upon, someone approached her from the side. "Here for a visit?" immediately, the head of Sakura quickly turned around at the familiar voice.

"News travels fast I see." Tsunade said with an impassive look on her face. With more important matters on her hands than the girl, Tsunade beckoned for Sakura to move slightly to the side so that she could open the door.

Despite The Fifth Hokage walking through the door, Naruto paid her no attention whatsoever. With his heart in his mouth, his vision was solely directed on his pink haired teammate who walked forward.

"Naruto" Sakura said as she stared and at her teammate. A myriad of emotions going through her head. Concern for his wellbeing after seeing all of the bandages, frustration at the fact that he couldn't bring back their teammate and hating herself for being so useless during this whole fiasco.

The Uzumaki tried to maintain eye contact for as long as he could but it wasn't long at all. Seeing the mood of the room, Tsunade took charge. "I had heard that your injuries were pretty serious. You seem to be doing pretty well considering."

"I've gotten hurt so much as a kid that I guess my body just got used to healing quicker than normal." Naruto said as he looked his Kage in the eyes. Sakura and Shikamaru heard what Naruto said. Tsunade heard what he didn't say. Displeasure was evident across her face to say the least.

Naruto wasn't too focus on that though. "I'm sorry Sakura."

Surprised that Naruto spoke to her, Sakura was forced to say something and her mind was struggling to come up with something to say. "Sorry? What've you got to be sorry about." Sakura tried to say in a upbeat tone but everyone in the room could tell that it was fake.

Sakura took a few steps forward. "Let me guess, you got reckless and went off half-cocked again huh? And look at you now, you look like a mummy." Sakura said, resorting to what she knew which was jokingly insulting Naruto to release the tension in the room.

Naruto wasn't having any of it though. His conversation with Jiraiya still in the back of his mind, he knew that this was going to be one of the last times he was going to see his friends for a long time. He didn't want to make a scene at Sakura's comment. "I'm so sorry Sakura." The blonde struggled to say, his voice on the verge of cracking.

"Hey… Why do you have the curtains closed? It's a beautiful day outside." Sakura replied, ignoring the comment and trying to keep the positivity in the room; even if she was dying on the inside at the fact that her crush had joined Orochimaru.

Shikamaru could only look on at what Sakura was doing whether intentional or not.

Fearful of the fact that he might lose his friend since he made that promised, Naruto became the most animated since Jiraiya mentioned being selfish was okay. "I haven't given up! Listen, I am still going to keep my promise" Tsunade looked long and hard at Naruto as he said this and she could see that he was mostly trying to convince himself rather than Sakura. "after all, it was the promise of a lifetime. I meant it!"

When Sakura spoke next, she wasn't as animated as she was before. "It is okay Naruto. Really…"

Shikamaru was frustrated to say the least… "He tried Sakura." He mentioned, entering the conversation.

His voice became slightly harder which the Nara genin picked up on. "If I say that I'm gonna do it, that means that I will. My way of the shinobi is that I always stand behind what I say!" Naruto said with the first smile that had appeared on his face since waking up.

It seemed as if there was a shift in the air as everyone displayed small smiles. Even Tsunade.

Yet another showcase of the seemingly innate ability for Naruto to be able to lift the spirits of the room.

 _I need to focus on healing my injuries! I need to start training with Ero-sennin as soon as I can! Not just for Sasuke but for the Akatsuki and becoming the Hokage!_ As these thoughts ran through his mind, Naruto couldn't help but lament on what may have happened, had he been that little bit stronger.

 _I should've tried harder, should've asked Kakashi-sensei or Pervy sage to teach me more jutsu!_ It was not lost on the genin that Sasuke knew jutsu how to do jutsu from two different elements! _What I'd give to be able to do something like that! I've even got so much chakra; I'd be able to do heaps of them!_

At this point Naruto tried to think back to the lessons that he was supposed to learn at the academy about the elemental ninjutsu. _Crap!_ Naruto thought to himself as he realised that he could hardly remember much at all. He didn't know the first thing about it so he had no idea how to go about trying to spit fireballs or shoot lightning beams!

 _Iruka would know!_

Naruto vowed that before he left that he was going to visit his former sensei and see if he could get as much out of his sensei on the things that he missed at the was situations like that this that reinforced what those around him had been saying in that he needed to focus on the basics.

 _I've been being a kid all this time. This isn't fun and games! I need to start taking things seriously. If I want to become the Hokage, then I need to start being more mature!_

Naruto internally vowed. Not everything about being a ninja was as sunshine and rainbows and yesterday was the perfect example.

Little did anyone know just how pivotal one thought on one day by one genin could change the entire landscape of the elemental nations for generations.

Much to Shizune's surprise Naruto, given all that she knew about his personality didn't try and escape the hospital. She didn't know what had caused it but he was confident that she was going to have to chase the boy around the village.

"Alright Naruto, you're officially cleared and ready to train but you probably should go a bit light…" Shizune said although she doubted that Naruto would be able to hear her since he was long gone already.

So far gone that he was already close to the academy where Iruka who had just finished for the day teaching his new students "Iruka-sensei Naruto shouted out, glad to see the academy teacher.

"Naruto, hey how's it going?" Iruka asked with a grin of his own on his face.

"It's been good and bad but guess what Iruka-sensei!?" Naruto questioned to which Iruka couldn't help but smile. He had heard rumours recently but the Naruto of old was on display and he was happy for it.

"What?"

"I'm going out of the village for three years."

"Huh?" The chunin dumbly replied, shock evident on his face.

"Yeah I'm leaving the village, come on Iruka-sensei, I'll tell you all about it over Ichiraku Ramen." The blonde grinned as he grabbed Iruka's hand and dragged him to the ramen bar.

The duo quickly made their way to the bar and before Iruka knew it, an order had been logged. "So care to run that by me again Naruto? You're leaving the village for three years!? Is this some kind of mission!?" A million questions were running through the mind of the chunin and he wanted answers!

"Yeah, nah. Yeah I'm leaving the village but it's not because of a mission. Ero-Sennin is taking me with him on a training trip." Naruto replied. Whilst he was excited for it, he knew he would miss his friends.

"But surely you could train here as well?" Iruka fired back, displeasure clear on his face.

Naruto grinned, it made his heart warm that him leaving made Iruka show how much he cared. "Not enough though. I would be going on missions a lot more and I need to focus on training because people are going to be after this." When he said 'this' Naruto gestured to his stomach.

A silent 'Oh' escaped Iruka's lips. The conversation suddenly got serious. "I see, so it's because of that."

Naruto shook his head. "Not just that Iruka-sensei. I also want to become Hokage and what better way than to get trained by the man who got trained by one and then taught one?"

To a regular, run of the mill chunin, it made Iruka realise just what sort of crowds Naruto was now starting to hang around. Compare that to the ones he did and they were vastly different than his own. Here Naruto was hanging out with clan heirs, high level elite jonin, getting taught by one of the Sannin and is incredibly close with the Hokage. In comparison, he was merely an academy teacher with a couple of other lifelong chunin friends and one special jonin friend if that is what you could call Anko.

To be honest, it made it feel a bit inadequate. Not that he was going to let Naruto know that though.

"You're not wrong there Naruto! Just don't forget that I was your first teacher hah!" Iruka said with a grin on his face. A bit of insecurity showing.

Naruto was affronted. "Of course Iruka-sensei! How could I not dattebayo!? You're the first person that ever believed in my dream to become the Hokage!" When Naruto put it like that, all of the fears and insecurities that Iruka had melted away.

"Thanks Naruto, it's just crazy to see how much you have improved over the past six 9 months."

Naruto grinned. Pride was evident on his face, hearing the praise from one of the people whose opinion he respected the most. "And just think how strong I'm gonna be when I get back! I bet I'm as strong if not stronger than Kakashi-sensei." Naruto replied, quite cheekily in fact at the end.

Iruka liked Naruto's optimism for sure but to be honest, he was a bit sceptical. "Stronger than Kakashi-san? That'll be hard to achieve considering Kakashi is arguably the third strongest ninja in the village behind the two Sannin."

"Hey, you said to dream big right!? Plus, when I've got the world's best academy teacher helping me out, I'll be unstoppable!" Touched at the opinion that Naruto had of him, Iruka smiled."

"Oh and how am I going to be helping you out considering you will be out of the village?"

At this point Naruto got a bit bashful. "Well, I was hoping that you could give me all of the stuff that I should of learnt at the academy Iruka-sensei. I've realised that I should have spent a lot more time at the academy paying attention rather than playing pranks." The blonde sheepishly said whilst rubbing the back of his head.

"Sorry can you repeat that?" The academy teacher couldn't help but ask, he wanted to make sure he heard what he thought he heard. Never in a million years would he have thought that Naruto would say something like that.

This only further served to tinge the cheeks of Naruto Uzumaki red. "I said I shouldn't of played the pranks in the academy and I should have focused on my studies!"

"Hahahaha." Iruka bellowed!

"It's not funny dattebayo!"

"You're right! It's hilarious!" Iruka replied as he continued to laugh before settling down. "Yeah, I'll see what I can do Naruto, anything you would like to focus on in particular?"

Naruto nodded straight away. "Yeah, chakra control and elemental ninjutsu. With the amount of chakra I have access to, I wanna become a ninjutsu juggernaut!"

 _Well if there was someone who could become good at it, it is you Naruto._ It was then that Iruka remembered that he had some chakra paper in his pocket due to an upcoming academy lesson he was planning. He figured that he could always get another one.

"Alright, I'll try and get some more on that. Here channel some chakra into this." Iruka stated as he handed Naruto a piece of chakra paper.

Doing as he was told, the genin channelled the chakra and watched as the piece of paper crumpled into a tiny little ball. Unaware of what this meant, Naruto looked to Iruka for guidance and saw a look of shock on the face of his sensei. "So what's so special about this ball?"

"Naruto, as you may or may not know, when you channel chakra into the paper, it produces a response based on your chakra nature. For fire, it catches on alight. For water, it becomes damp and soggy. For wind it splits in two and for earth it crumbles and turns into dust." Iruka said with the look of astonishment on his face.

Naruto was aware that there was one that his sensei hadn't mentioned. The same one that Kakashi and Sasuke used for the Chidori. Say what you will but the move that created a hole in your freaking chest sure left a memory on Naruto. "What about lightning?"

"Well normally lightning crinkles slightly, like a chip almost. This though is the most extreme form of chakra nature I have seen.

"Huh?" Naruto questioned, getting the gist that something was up but he wasn't quite sure what.

"This is telling you Naruto that you are going to be very good and I mean very good at lightning jutsus!"

"Yatta!" Naruto couldn't help but cry out in sheer joy! He could throw it in the faces of Kakashi and more importantly Sasuke when he saw him again that he was better at lightning than what they were.

Ever the one to cut Naruto down to size, Iruka continued. "However, this means that you will basically be unable to wind ninjutsu which may arguably, have been a better fit for your fighting style. At minimum it would be incredibly hard for you to use one of the jutsus. In summary, you will find it a lot easier to create and use jutsus from the lightning element, however, you will find it harder to use jutsus from the other elements, relative to other shinobi." Iruka lectured to Naruto, something the blonde was very much thankful for.

"Minimize your weaknesses and maximize your strengths right Iruka-sensei!?" Naruto questioned, grin paramount on his face as he summarized the chat.

 _You know, it wouldn't surprise me if Naruto came back on the same level as Kakashi._ Iruka thought to himself. He could see a change in maturity and wanted to see where it would take his favourite student.

Before anymore could be said or thought on the topic, the food arrived for the two.

"So you're really going to be taking Naruto out of the village for three years huh?" Tsunade idly commented as she sipped her sake.

"Oh come on princess. You know that it had to be done. Plus, don't be that down in the dumps, you've got Shizune here with ya. Ya haven't even known the kid for that long either haha" Jiraiya said, drunk as a fish.

Tsunade was annoyed. It showed on her face. "Jiraiya! Be serious. This isn't something to joke around about. The brat hinted at how he was treated as a kid due to being the jinchuuriki and I find it appalling. You better not raise him into be some pervert. Kushina would be ashamed if you did that."

The drunk mess that was Jiraiya almost immediately cracked. Gone was his goofy persona. "Tsunade. I am going to say this once and once only. A lot of times has passed since we were teammates and friends. Be very careful with what you say to me about Naruto. After seeing my godson nearly die due his best friend betraying him and stabbing him through the chest so recently after our recent encounter with Orochimaru and Kabuto amde me re-evaluate my priorities. Naruto is the highest priority in my life and I am going to go through everyone including the Hokage if I have to for Naruto.

The fuckin Akatsuki is coming 'Nade! Sasuke is the least of his Naruto's worries! I'm going to take the brat out of the village to solely focus on making Naruto the monster of a shinobi he was destined to be." Passion was pouring out of Jiraiya as he stared at Tsunade in a way that the Hokage had never seen before.

The blonde woman was surprised. She definitely did not expect Jiraiya to be so forceful and protective over Naruto. She knew he was Jiraiya's godson and all but to be honest, she still saw him as the womanizer who didn't ever take anything seriously; Whether that be relationships or kids. Shock evident on the face of Tsunade as she saw Jiraiya like this. This was the serious side of Jiraiya that she saw once a decade if she was lucky.

It was kind of _attractive_. That power, that focus, that care for his godson.

And just like that, it was gone.

"I've got a challenge for you though 'Nade." Previous thoughts immediately went away as Jiraiya garnered the attention of his former teammate once more.

"What."

"Well with Orochi taking that Sasuke kid and me taking Naruto, that just leaves that Sakura girl and you to complete the Trio." Jiraiya said with a suggestive grin on his face.

"No. I am not taking on another student."

"What? Scared cause you know just how much of a better sensei I will be to Naruto than what you are to Sakura? Scared that I am going to show up the illustrious first ever female Kage?"

Tsunade stared at Jiraiya who had a gleam in his eyes, fully knowing what her answer was going to be. "Fine! You're on! And wide that smug smirk off of your face you smug son of a bitch." If anything, it only further served to intensify Jiraiya looked like he was a cat with a little tweedy bird in his mouth.

 _Good. Hopefully something to keep Tsunade tied a bit more to the village whilst Naruto and I are gone._

"So what's the reward going to be when we find out who has trained the better shinobi?" Jiraiya grinned.

Tsunade had an idea.

"It's time to go Naruto." Jiraiya said to the boy who looked up at his sensei and nodded. He had just finished signing the last document for the apartment he formerly rented. There was no point in his eyes to pay for place for 3 years when he wasn't going to be in it. He hoped that this would save him some money which he could spend on ramen!

He was interested in what the future would hold for him.

 **Author's Notes: Hey! This is a thought that I have had and wondered if Jiraiya had taken a more active role in not just training but also raising Naruto during the 3 year skip.**

 **Here is my first story, please let me know what you think, anything I could improve on and if you have any suggestions or potential plot ideas you think may work well let me know!**


	2. Of a far off place

"You're a million years too young to be even on my radar let alone close to my level Gaki!" Jiraiya grinned as he slammed Naruto into the ground, rendering their morning spar effectively over.

"Well whatdya expect or are you going senile you old man!? You've had tonnes of time to get better and at least as you and baa-chan have said I've got potential." Naruto replied, grudgingly getting up from the ground.

Jiraiya didn't miss a beat. "And you what potential means brat?" The Sannin questioned, waiting to get Naruto's full attention before continuing on. "It means that you are currently shit."

All Naruto could do was just glare at his sensei. It wasn't that Naruto didn't agree with the man, it was just that he didn't have to word it like that.

"Alright Naruto, now, training actually begins." It was the day after they had left the village and as much as he didn't like it. Jiraiya had made the call that there was to be no chakra or physical training until the day after. That didn't stop Naruto from reading as much as he could though thanks to all of the scrolls that Iruka had given him.

Secretly, Jiraiya was beyond impressed with what had saw Naruto studying. It wasn't pretty and he didn't like it but he knew that it got results. Moments like these made Jiraiya confident that Naruto going places.

"Yatta!" Naruto jumped up and down in joy. He couldn't wait to learn how to shoot lasers and bring lightning bolts down from the sky ever since he found out about his element. He hoped that was what he was going to taught.

"Today is going to be the first day of the rest of your life." With the way Jiraiya said that, Naruto gulped. He didn't entirely know what he was in for but he knew that he could handle whatever it was! "So kid, we both know your goal is to become Hokage. We also both know that you have the potential to one day be in that conversation. The question is though, how are you going to get there?" The Sannin said with a small grin on his face as he watched his godson think for a moment.

Now he knew that this was some kind of test but he wasn't entirely too sure why or what. "Well first you have to get really strong! I dunno, probably hafta learn a bunch of lightning jutsus since that's my element as of yesterday. That and get as good as bushy brow sensei for taijutsu. Also need to stop being so sucky when it comes to genjutsu. After that… I'm not too sure." Naruto thought out loud. He wasn't naïve enough to know that he still had things to work on.

The Toad Sannin was admittedly surprised. He didn't think that Naruto would mention his weaknesses like that. _Oh that lightning element, just like his dad! I wonder if Naruto will be able to complete the Rasengan?_

"Everything you said isn't wrong but you never mentioned any real plan on how you are going to get there. So your goal is to become the Hokage right, let me guess, you just think you will become a chunin, then a jonin and finally Hokage; just like how you went from attending the academy to graduating and becoming a genin." Jiraiya replied and when he saw Naruto nod his head rapidly he wondered that A, Naruto may get whiplash and B, that was not at all effective. "You could become Hokage that way if you got lucky and put in a lot of effort but it doesn't sound all that well thought out."

Naruto didn't retort. There was a reason why he was getting taught by Jiraiya. The man obviously knew his stuff given the fact that he taught the previous Hokage.

"You need a plan Naruto. Obviously a position like the Hokage is going to be one that a lot of people want to go for right?" Naruto nodded. "Well then if you fail to have a plan, you are basically planning to fail. You don't have to have the entire plan down to the last detail down by tonight but you do need the basics.

Holistically, what can be improved about you as a shinobi? Well you're right, you do definitely need to work on your genjutsu, your taijutsu could be improved on before you become a chunin and yeah, learning at least one element would be critical if you wanted to rank up above chunin."

Naruto took that into considering given that Jiraiya had rattled off everything that he had already done. "That's the easy stuff though. That's the top spinach, green onion and cilantro in your ramen. No, what we want to focus on are the broth, the noodles and the pork."

Internally as he said this, Jiraiya was patting himself on the back. He had Naruto in the palm of his hand and was ready to eat up every single word that he said. Sure he could have worded it differently but part of being a good teacher was knowing your audience and finding the best way to get them to engage, to want to ask the questions rather than being told the answers.

"Think of the noodles as your health." Naruto stared on in rapture. His eyes were glued to his sensei and he was confident that he had never paid as much attention to a teacher as he was right now. "No matter how much the other ingredients are cooked to perfection, if the noodles are either way too hard or soggy, the dish is ruined right?"

"Yeah no one likes crappy noodles Jiraiya-sensei." Naruto gave it no thought but Jiraiya did. _Figures the only way he will respect me is if I talk in ramen to him._

"Right, so just like that, no matter how good everything else is, if you are unhealthy such as not eating right, not drinking enough water and not sleeping enough, then everything else is going to be affected. The second most important thing is the broth right? Can you think of what that may be?"

Seeing the boy shake his head, Jiraiya didn't mind. "The broth is the people Naruto. Just think. As a chunin let alone anything higher, you are going to be responsible of leading missions with other people. You are going to have to be making calls with other peoples lives on the line. In addition to that, you are also going to be dealing with budgets, academy curriculum and managing all of the different clans in the villages. All of these tasks involve people so your ability to communicate, manage expectations, empathize and negotiate are crucial if you want to become anything more than a chunin."

Hearing it now, he completely agreed with what Jiraiya was saying. _It's so simple. No matter happens, people have been the real reason for everything. For me to become Hokage, it was because I wanted the acknowledgement of the village. I wanted to make friends and I saw the Hokage as the way to do that since every person loved him._

"And if you want my opinion Gaki, I am not saying this to inflate your ego but to make you aware of the strengths that you have… This, not your taijutsu or your ninjutsu or even your chakra reserves is your biggest fucking skill."

"Huh?" Naruto could dumbly question with his mouth slightly open. Never in a million years would he have thought that would be his best skill.

"Right, so given that we have decided what those two ingredients are, have a guess what you think the pork might be? Remember, this is the Naruto Ramen and not some generic ramen."

"Kyubi." Naruto whispered but his hands were clenched to the point where there was blood forming on his fingernails.

"IT ALWAYS COMES BACK TO THE FUCKING KYUBI! I JUST WANT TO BE KNOWN AS NARUTO MOTHER FUCKING ASS KICKING UZUMAKI!" Naruto shouted as his frustration was evident on his face.

"That's an odd middle name."

Naruto's eyes switched from staring intensely into Jiraiya's and instead looked down at the ground. "I-I-I just want to be Naruto Uzumaki, whoever that is. No Kyubi, just me." Naruto whispered, more so for himself rather than anyone else who wanted to listen. He was tired of having the Kyubi hanging over his life; whether he knew it or not.

"Naruto." Jiraiya said as he placed his palm on the boy's shoulder, Naruto looked up. "No one is even going to remember the fact that you have the Kyubi once they find out how much of a monster you are once I am done training with you!"

Naruto's face quickly had a grin appear on it before it was morphed into a smirk. _I like the sounds of that._

Morning tea was quickly over with Jiraiya once again going over how important it was to setting small goals and achieving them. It ingrained being successful and instilled a work ethic where you could see your next goal rather than it being so far away.

"Gaki, you're finally getting your wish. We're going to be starting off with elemental ninjutsu."

"Yatta!" Naruto yelled out excitedly as he jumped up and down on the ground. That was until he was hit in the face with a balloon. "Oi Pervy sage what the hell was that for!?"

"Do you want me to tell you or not?" Seeing that Naruto decided to be quiet for once, Jiraiya started speaking. "So kid, since you have been reading those books your academy teacher got you, you should know this but I'll give you a refresher course. You have shape manipulation which is morphing chakra into the shape you want for your jutsu. The Rasengan is the highest form of shape manipulation there is.

Nature transformation though binds chakra to a shape through an element. You've never seen a raw chakra dragon have you? It's always been a fire, water or some other element right?" Naruto nodded when asked.

"So you have learnt how to manipulate the shape of your chakra, now you need to learn how to change it to being lightning chakra."

"Gotcha, but how does the balloon tie into this? I've already learnt the rasengan." The genin questioned, curiosity on his face.

Ignoring the boy, Jiraiya asked his own question. "Gaki, have you ever had your chakra kind of feel like, I don't know vibrates. I don't use the lightning element so I can't tell you what it is supposed to feel like."

Naruto had to think back on it. _Now that I think about it, it sometimes did._ "Yeah sometimes but not that often."

 _Wow, I'm surprised that worked. I didn't expect for him to be able to feel it. Normally people only feel that half way through training the first stage of their element. I guess Naruto must have strong affinity._

"Good, so when channelling your chakra into your hand, you want to embrace the vibrations as you bring your chakra to the surface. The balloon is there to help you feel the vibrations. Rub the balloon on your forearm hairs then after you quickly take it off, channel chakra into your fingers." The Toad Sannin mentioned to which Naruto nodded.

Not wasting any time, Naruto brought his chakra to the surface of his arm, rubbed the balloon on it, felt the vibrations intensify and then he pushed that vibrating feeling down his forearm into his index finger. The tiniest of tiny sparks dribbled out of his finger and sent a tingling feeling down his arm and fingers.

"Oh… I was expecting something cool. That was weak." Naruto groaned. Frustration evident on his face. _I don't think you realise kid… The only people I have heard rumoured to be able to get it on their first go are all kage level shinobi. That was pretty damn good, not that I am going to tell you that though, Gaki's ego is big enough as it is._

"There's definitely room for improvement there, kid haha." Jiraiya laughed. "Get it to the point where you can send a short, sharp burst with one finger down to the ground. From there, work on being able to do the same thing with your other hand. Once you have done that, remove the balloon and repeat the same steps and then come back to me. Now stay here, I've got some… research to do."

"Okay Ero-Sennin!" Naruto replied, not really focusing on his sensei. He had already given the exercise at hand another go and was preparing his third. Seeing that trickle and a joke of a lightning stream out of his finger made Naruto determined to do better. He'd seen and felt what Sasuke was capable of and if there was one thing in the world that Naruto wanted on the same level as the Hokage, it was proving that he was better than Sasuke.

Over the course of the next few hours whilst Jiraiya did his research, Naruto spent countless attempts on improving his newfound ability. Trial and error was the best teacher for Naruto as he found what worked for him. He had graduated from a small burst of lightning that fizzled out mere milliseconds from leaving the body to being able to send a consistent stream to the ground from one finger. This was all whilst using the balloon.

Now he was trying to work on doing the same thing with his left index finger.

"Oi brat, food's ready!" Jiraiya called out to Naruto from the campsite. Naruto raced over as he was starting to get hungry and he would never say no to someone cooking him food. It was something that he very rarely got to experience.

The first thing that he noticed was that there was absolutely no ramen. Instead there was just copious amounts of rice and pork. A few vegetables here and there but a 500 grams of pork and 400grams of rice. There weren't even any sauces! All in all it l ooked pretty bland.

"Can we have ramen Pervy Sage?" Naruto questioned. He wasn't used to having someone cook for him and ramen sounded better than this.

Annoyed, Jiraiya replied. "Oi Gaki, do you want to become Hokage or not? If you do sit down, shut up and eat. Trust me on this, eat like this for a 2 months. If you don't like the progress once you are done, you can change your diet back to what you want."

Naruto was promptly put in his place. He grumbled but didn't object any further. The blonde haired boy remembered hearing about how he could eat better for performance. Begrudgingly he agreed he would try what his sensei was telling him but if he didn't like it, he was going back to ramen every day!

"Oi midget, go and make a shadow clone and get them to get some water from the stream. It's about half a K that way." Jiraiya commented to which Naruto was about to question why couldn't Jiraiya do it but thought better of it. Grumbling, Naruto put his bowl of rice down, formed the hand sign and there was a plume of smoke.

With instructions, the clone of Naruto headed with the jug down to the stream. Not thinking anything of it, the Uzumaki boy went back to eating his rice and pork.

No sound was made after it until Naruto shot up from his seated position. "We're under attack Pervy Sage! My clone just got attacked by a guy from Iwa!" Naruto panicked and quickly got up off the ground, preparing for a fight.

He expected Jiraiya to get up with him since he was the muscle of the duo. Instead he fell back and started laughing.

"What!? What's so funny!?" Naruto agitatingly replied.

"How do you know that kid, you've been sitting here the entire time!"

When Jiraiya said that, it definitely through Naruto for a loop as he realised Jiraiya was right?" _How did I know that? I mean I sent my clone over that way.. not me. I get clones' memories!_ "I get my clones' memories! So whatever they learn I learn sensei! I can use this for scouting." Naruto animatedly called out.

"You can also use it for training Naruto." Naruto's eyes widened to almost comical proportions as he thought of just how much training he could get done, given how many clones he could create. Jiraiya could also see what was going through the mind of his godson. He needed to cut that out otherwise it could be dangerous. "NO! I know what you are thinking and I am not going to allow it. The maximum amount of clones you are allowed to create is 5 until I state otherwise. There is a severe amount of stress that happens which could lead to the Kyubi breaking free."

 _Oh…_ Naruto thought. His mood dropping as he thought he could train with 1000 clones at a time. Still, 5 would be 5 times faster than what he was currently training at so he definitely wasn't going to complain.

"And what about the Iwa shinobi?" Naruto questioned, remembering the enemy.

"Oh that was just a clone of mine to get you to realise what shadow clones can really do." Naruto's fears were put at ease when Jiraiya said this and then went back to eating his dinner. There was a lot of food that he had to get through but he knew that Jiraiya knew what he was doing… or at least that he hoped the man did.

Dinner was fairly uneventful after that. Naruto was keen to get back into learning ninjutsu with clones but Jiraiya cut that down to size pretty quickly. If he had any say in the matter, Naruto was not going to be a one trick ninjutsu pony.

Instead what Naruto did was a brutal taijutsu workout focused on conditioning his body. Weighted squats, push ups, pull ups and planks to name a few exercise which were then followed up with some sprinting drills.

It was a massive workout that went on for 2 hours. Naruto was struggling to walk by the time it was over, his legs were feeling jelly and he was fairly confident he was going to have T-Rex arms given the amount of curls he did with those rocks.

His body was craving for even more food, surprisingly given the amount that he had eaten an hour before the workout. Thankfully there was still leftovers that he could eat.

After he felt like he couldn't eat any more, Naruto got to work in writing out the plan for his ascension to the title of Hokage.

 _Well no matter what, I won't be able to get promoted to chunin until I go back to the village._

 _Health is the foundation as Jiraiya said so I have to make sure I eat a lot of food, drink a lot of water and sleep for at least 8 hours every day if I can. That should be pretty easy I guess._

 _I need to learn about the other side of being the Hokage though. Mission reports, dealing with clans, budgets, all of that. I need mission experience, in general and as a leader. I can't do much of that now though so I can only do what I can and that is read._

It wasn't something that he liked the thought of at all but he knew that if he wanted to get to the top and become the Hokage, he would need to do it.

After finishing writing down his goals and how he plans on achieving them, Naruto decided it was time to go to bed, before he did though, he noticed one of those damn Icha Icha books floating around.

 _This is what all of those damn perverts read… I wonder what's so good about it?_

One month. All that had happened was one month had passed and yet Naruto, when he looked in the mirror at the in that they were staying at, he couldn't believe what he saw. _I guess if you eat tonnes of food, past the point where you feel sick and don't want to eat anymore, you gain muscle._ Naruto thought to himself as he looked in the mirror. He had gotten bigger. Not much bigger but all of the baby fat on his body seeped away to reveal a shredded teenager. His body was using the nutrient dense foods far more effectively and was able to fire on all cylinders compared to before when it was only getting nutrients from Ramen.

He had had Ramen 3 times in the past 4 weeks and when he did have it, he truly savoured it. The rice and the pork weren't all that enjoyable but given the results that he had seen in the field, Naruto knew that it was worth it.

He was able to train harder which was great but what really shocked Naruto was just how well he was able to recover from his training sessions. He could train hard and be fully recovered by the next morning ready to go again. He could even do double sessions and recover from it. This meant that Naruto could push his training that much harder and yet, still be ready without any dip in performance.

Naruto had always had power. His punches were ones to be feared all throughout the academy. Now he had speed though. Sure it was only a month but there was a significant difference in speed when Naruto sparred Jiraiya. The blonde knew that he wasn't close to Lee or Sasuke but he knew that he had passed Kiba and was closing in on Neji.

It wasn't just that he was getting bigger, faster and stronger but his taijutsu technique was getting refined at a rapid rate. Being punched in the face multiple times by an S-ranked ninja wasn't taking it easy was a definite motivator.

Naruto's taijutsu had improved a lot over the past month but the compared to his ninjutsu, it was laughably slow progress. Ninjutsu was where the real progress was. Naruto had improved from being able to send one stream of lightning from one finger to being able to send 10 streams, each finger shooting off their respective stream of lightning. Increased control also allowed Naruto to put more chakra into them without burning his hands or having the chakra become unstable.

Not satisfied with this, Naruto then worked on being able to start and stop a stream on a dime. All of it showing further control. He had even managed to turn this into getting Jiraiya to teach him his first elemental ninjutsu

It wasn't just his elemental chakra that was getting better at control, the 5 shadow clones were working on his base chakra control. The proudest achievement of this for Naruto was that he was finally able to create the rasengan without a clone. He had to grip his wrist and focus on it for a minute but he was able to do it. He planned on shortening the time it took.

Naruto was proud of the progress that he had made in a month but he was keen to keep progressing and hopefully he could go on a mission so that he could see how much had improved.


	3. Where a hero's welcome

"Raiton: Gian (Lightning Release: False Darkness)" Naruto called out as he launched the jutsu at Jiraiya.

"You're going to have to do better than that kid!" Jiraiya called out as he dodged the incoming bolt of lightning. As he was doing this, he started going through his own hand seals. "Katon: Endan (Fire Release: Flame bullet)"

Unlike Jiraiya, Naruto was unable to get away and the fire caught Naruto on his leg. That was until he burst into a plume of smoke, indicating it was a shadow clone all along. Not one to rest on his laurels, Jiraiya once again went through hand seals. "Doton: Yumi Numa (Earth Release: Swap of the Underworld)"

Naruto just barely dodged the attack by jumping in the air. "Raiton: Raikyu no jutsu (Lightning release: Lightning ball jutsu) A ball of compressed chakra, similar in size and shape to the rasengan was created in front of Naruto before it went flying towards Jiraiya. The blonde genin immediately followed up with speed and charged towards him.

 _Ninjutsu hasn't been working so I need to get close and see if I can force a mistake!_ Naruto pulled out two kunai and channelled raiton chakra into them. Electricity sparked off of the small blades. Instead of drawing his own kunai, Jiraiya dodged the incoming ball of lightning before bringing up his hand to block the kunai with his bracer. Due to near perfect chakra control, the electricity coating the blade dissipated.

"Urgk" Naruto coughed as a fist was embedded deep into his gut which caused a small amount of blood to dribble down his chin. He didn't even time to react as he got forced into a bent over position, Jiriaya drived his kneed right into the skull of Naruto, not holding back at all. A sickening crunch was heard as bone and cartilage moved in all different directions of what was Naruto's previously unbroken face.

The blonde was launched back a few metres into the swamp that his sensei had made just previously.

"You're still shit but you're at least improving kid." Jiraiya called out as he walked over to the prone form of his godson.

Naruto didn't respond. He was lying on his back completely unresponsive. To Jiraiya it definitely looked like Naruto was knocked out. He was certain of the fact that he didn't use enough force to kill Naruto.

Naruto was seeing stars and before he fell asleep for real, he heard Jiraiya talk, although this time it was much quieter. "I'm sorry that I had to do that to your son Minato and Kushina. You should seen the improvement that your boy has made though, he's gone from genin verging on chunin to a high ranked chunin in six months. You would definitely be proud of him, I know I am."

 **o-0-o**

 _W-w-what hit me?_ Naruto internally questioned as he found himself waking up. He hadn't opened his eyes yet but he could already tell that he had difficulties breathing compared to normal.

Slowly the events of the earlier that day came back to him.

Jiraiya-sensei informed Naruto that they were going to have an all out spar. _I guess all out meant broken nose._ Naruto thought to himself as he gingerly brought his hand up to his face to touch it. _And he'd justify it by saying that enemies would do far wore and I wouldn't be able to argue against it._

 _Fuck it hurt though._

Opening his eyes, Naruto noticed that he wasn't in the tent as normal but he was in a bedroom. _I guess Pervy Sage splashed some of that Icha Icha money._ Slowly, Naruto attempted to do a sit up into a more upright position. When he tried, he felt a sharp pain coming from his abdomen. _Something's happened to my ribs as well it seems. I thought that gap between us was closing but this just means that I need to train even harder!_ The fact that Jiraiya had 4 years of fighting experience over Naruto was ignored by the genin.

Struggling, Naruto did a dip motion and pushed himself up, leaning against the wall. The movement was enough to for Naruto to find it easier to breathe.

His privacy was ruined after this happened. Jiraiya walked into the room with some water in a glass to which he gave to Naruto. He quickly followed up with handing his godson two pills for pain relief. Naruto didn't bite the hand that fed him so he shortly ingested the two pills after getting a mouthful of water.

"Ya know, I thought that the gap between us was closing but I didn't even land a hit or jutsu on you. I still have so far to go." Naruto looked down at his hands, frustration evident in his voice.

Seeing what was going through Naruto's head, Jiraiya was serious. "Hey Naruto, you have to give yourself some credit. Not to brag too much but there are probably less than 10 people in the world that can hang with me when I go all out. Think about that for a second. Out of near the 20,000 people that make up Konoha, there are only 3 shinobi that have a chance at best of defeating me."

"That's not good enough! Itachi was a ANBU leader capable of wiping out his entire clan by the age of thirteen and what was I able to do at that age? I was barely able to graduate which was probably because the Sandaime felt sorry for me." Naruto hotly replied, ignoring the message that Jiraiya was trying to give.

"You dumbass!" Jiraiya said as he raised his voice a couple of octaves. "Stop thinking about the negatives Naruto! Think about the positives. Think about how far you have come since you started the chunin exams. You fought my former teammate, got your chakra sealed and still managed to beat your opponent in the preliminaries. Focus on how then managed to learn another A-rank ninjutsu before you then fought a almost fully released tailed demon as a fresh out of the academy genin. You could also think about how you learnt the highest form of shape manipulation, an A-ranked ninjutsu developed by the Fourth Hokage in only 3 weeks.

In the space of 13 months, you have gone from an academy student who could only perform 2 of the 3 necessary jutsus required to graduate to a high level chunin. If people saw you now, they would change their mind. I guarantee when we go back to Konoha and you see your former classmates, you're going to blow them out of the water!"

The genin had looked up at Jiraiya halfway through his impassioned speech. A grin formed on his face and it kept getting bigger and bigger. "Thanks Jiraiya-sensei. It meant a lot to me. I really needed that. It's just that sometimes I feel as I'm struggling to float in an ocean of sharks."

"Being a shinobi isn't supposed to be easy Naruto. It's simple yes but far from easy. This is especially true, the further you want to increase in rank and prestige. You're going to have to keep putting in more and more effort to improve because if you want to see results that you have never had before, then you are going to have to put in work that you have never done before."

"You're right! Simple, not easy. I just need to keep putting one foot in front of the other." Naruto grinned. That grin slowly left his face and became a flat line.

" _I'm sorry that I had to do that to your son Minato and Kushina. You should seen the improvement that your boy has made though, he's gone from genin verging on chunin to a high ranked chunin in six months. You would definitely be proud of him, I know I am."_

 _Jiraiya called me Minato's son. The only Minato I know is the Yondaime Hokage. Plus he has bright yellow hair just like me._

 _Come on Naruto, we've been down this road before don't get your hopes up._ Naruto though to himself. Ever since he saw other kids with parents, he wondered who his were. Wondered why they were never around. In the past he had gone to the Sandaime to ask for information but got told he didn't know.

Due to the pain of the thoughts, Naruto no longer asked questions and had it pushed into the back of his mind, despite how desperately he wanted to find out answers to his heritage.

"You alright there kid? You've gone awfully quiet." Jiraiya asked, taking Naruto out of his trance.

"Yeah… just lost in thought." Naruto offhandedly said before going back to his thoughts. A surge of emotion, deep in the pit of his stomach was lighting up and roaring. His heart was pounding as the thought of finally finding out answers to the most sought after question made Naruto question whether or not he really wanted to know.

 _I guess if I don't ask now, I'll always question and wonder._

"Jiraiya. Before I passed out, you said that Minato and Kushina would be proud of me. Do you know who my parents are?" Naruto tried to say with as straight a face as he could. It was barely held together.

 _Shit!_ Jiriaya's eyes widened, an action that Naruto caught. It was evident to the blonde that he had caught his sensei off guard. _Definitely knows something. Something that I shouldn't by the seams of it!_ Anger and frustration started bubbling under the surface of Naruto and as more time went on waiting for an answer, the more agitated he got.

His eyes looked around the room for a second but he saw the look in the eyes of Naruto and saw Minato. He couldn't hide it any longer. Sarutobi was dead so the rule was now defunct anyway.

"I do." For the first time since he had known the Legendary Sannin, Naruto saw a side that different to all of the others. It was the side of a 52-year-old man who had demons in his closet. It was as if Jiraiya had aged a decade in a second. The wrinkles on his face seemed ever more apparent to Naruto.

The Uzumaki didn't give a shit though. The truth about his heritage was almost in his finger tips and he was going to get the answers he had been craving for his entire life!

There was a look in the eyes of Naruto that was rarely there. "Is my father Minato Namikaze?" Naruto questioned.

He didn't know what the aftermath of the impending conversation was going to be for the relationship he had with Naruto but Jiraiya saw that there was no point in hiding the truth anymore. "Yes." Regardless of his intentions to tell Naruto everything, he still couldn't look Naruto in the eyes as he spoke.

A million emotions spilled to the surface as the news that Naruto wasn't entirely sure he wanted to hear were uttered. _My father was the 4_ _th_ _Hokage._

"Why? Why me? Surely he must have known what would happen to someone when they got a demon sealed in them? Why did it have to be his own fucking son because I can guarantee that I would not wish the character building if you could even call my childhood on anyone, even Orochi Fucking Maru!?"

"I'm so so sorry that you had to go through that." Jiraiya replied, his voice quivering. Naruto barely picked up on it, so focused on his own emotions that he barely registered the fact that he was seeing his sensei in a state that he had never seen before.

"That was just it though. Naruto, if you were forced in that position where you had to make the choice, how could you ask someone else to give up their child if you were not willing to give up your own?"

Naruto paused at that and conceded the point that his sensei made. "Then why the fuck if I, the fucking Hokage's son, did I have to live such a lonely and isolated life!? Surely someone would have wanted to look after me!?" tears started to form on the edge of his eyes as emotions were coming to the forefront and Naruto did not attempt to hide them whatsoever.

Memories of his childhood, sitting on that swing all alone, hearing parents congratulate their children whilst insulting him was a memory that Naruto was certain he would never forget.

 _It's time to own up to my failures, regardless of the outcome_ Jiraiya thought to himself as he steeled his emotions as best as he could. He was about to have one of the toughest conversations of his life. He could only hope for the best.

"I'm so sorry Naruto. You have to believe me, I really am." The Toad Sannin replied with tears slowly falling down his cheeks. This made Naruto pause in his anger for a moment. He had never seen Jiraiya cry and he doubted that he ever would again.

"Not that it's any excuse but after Minato and Kushina died, I was not in the right mental or emotional state to look after myself let alone look after a child. I could say that I was doing missions, which I was but that would be a bullshit excuse."

Naruto stared long and hard at Jiraiya. _He's taking this so personally. There's something behind this that I'm not seeing._ "This is going to take a lot of time for me to process." Naruto honestly said as he struggled to come to terms with what he had just heard.

Seeing that Naruto hadn't said anything along the lines of hating the man, Jiraiya thought given the conversation that they had had so far, he might as well say it. "Naruto, your parents gave me the honour of being your godfather.

The genin looked at the silver haired man and sighed. "Well that's just a kick in the dick then isn't it."

"I need some space." Naruto said, his face barring a scowl as he got up and walked out of the room. Jiraiya did not follow.

 **o-0-o**

"Why Kami did it have to be me!?" Sure he knew the answer the person who was apparently his godfather gave and he couldn't argue against it but he didn't have to like it. Frustration turned into anger and the Kyubi saw this as a chance.

Rage consumed Naruto as red chakra slowly seemed to consume the once previously blue eyes of Naruto. Slits appeared down the centre of his iris' and both his fingernails and toenails started to grow. It wasn't long before a shroud of red charka took place and surrounded Naruto.

All of the emotional pain that he had gone through as a kid came back to the forefront of his mind and was amplified due to the Kyubi's chakra.

This was the scene that Jiraiya spotted. He was going to leave his godson alone as per his request. That was until he felt the tell-tale chakra of the nine tailed demon fox. All bets were off as far as Jiraiya was concerned when it came to the nine tailed fox. He cared about his godson and student far too much. "Be careful Naruto. You're channelling a lot of the fox's chakra right now." Jiraiya yelled out.

Naruto yelled right back at his sensei. "Leave me the fuck alone!" Hormones for a teenager caused instability and for Naruto this happened to be amplified. Testosterone was one hell of a drug.

"I can't do that Naruto. I care too much about you, especially when you are channelling the fox's chakra. I don't want anything bad to happen to you." Jiraiya grimaced as he spoke from the heart. He knew as the words came out of his mouth they weren't the right thing to say. _I was never good at dealing with my issues._

Rage palpitated on the surface of Naruto's face and only served to make him angrier. He brought his opened palm hand up and faced it towards Jiraiya. "If you supposedly care so much about me, then why the fuck did you force me to have to learn how to cook, how to ride a bike, how to look after a cut and bruise; Things that A FUCKING GODFATHER SHOULD DO?" Naruto screamed and channelled chakra into his hand.

 _Shit, Gaki's using raw chakra manipulation!_ A beam of uncontrolled lightning shot out of the palm of Naruto's hand in the direction of Jiraiya. Chunks of dirt flew up into the air from where the stream of electricity collided with the ground.

 _If I know Naruto as well as I hope that I do, then he would rather fight this out._ The fact that a tail started to appear and form at the back of his shroud confirmed this for Jiraiya. _I need to be careful though as we haven't really had much practice with the bijuu's chakra yet. From what Naruto told me, he went to two tails when fighting Sasuke._ "Katon: Endan (Fire Release: Flame bullet)" Jiraiya called out as he released the fireball towards his student.

Just like in his fight was Sasuke Uchiha, Naruto ran towards Jiraiya and shouted at the fireball. For anyone else, this would have looked utterly stupid and resulted in them getting incinerated. Not Naruto though. With the help of chakra, Naruto shouted at the fireball and it dispersed. Winds were generated so great that Jiraiya was pushed back a couple of steps.

As the fight was going on and more of the Kyubi's chakra ran through his body, Naruto's injuries started to heal. His cracked rib from before was fully healed and his formerly broken nose was well on the way to recovery.

Impressed as the sheer force his godson was capable of providing, The Toad Sannin entered hand to hand combat due to Naruto rapidly closing the distance between the two. _That chakra is unreal. It's made Naruto who isn't the fastest shinobi go middle of the range chunin to verging on jonin level and that's with only one tail! I'd hate to be on the end of all nine!_

Naruto threw a hook punch aimed right at Jiraiya's face, hoping to knock a few teeth out. Being the wise man that he was, Jiraiya avoided the punch and threw his own. This was a short jab though and collected Naruto in the jaw.

The 14-year-old was rocked back a step but quickly came back for more. "Stupid fucking perverted godfather should spend more time with his kid rather than writing books for desperate men to jack off to because they can't get anything else."

"Naruto's proud of my work!" Jiraiya replied with a grin on his face as he jumped to avoid the elbow of the blonde.

Both Jiraiya and Naruto knew what the man was trying to do, trying to diffuse the situation with comedy. Naruto had picked up on it a while back. Anger surfaced as Naruto realised that despite having the Kyubi's chakra, he was still unable to touch Jiraiya. With a raised palm just like before, Naruto shot a raw beam of manipulated raiton chakra right at Jiraiya.

Unlike other lightning that Naruto had used in the past. This wasn't predominantly white lightning tinged slightly blue. No, this was a dark, crimson red colour. It pulsated with energy and tore through the ground, fracturing it and anything else that dared to go in its path.

 _That would murder anything that it touched. I can't play around here._ Jiraiya thought to himself, impressed at the abilities Naruto was showing.

Naruto wasn't as impressed though. He didn't care about that. Jiraiya was still standing in front of him without a scratch on his body. That was about to change. A second tail started to form in Naruto's shroud as he channelled more of the Kyubi's chakra into his system.

"Ranjishigami no Jutsu (Wild Lion's Mane Jutsu) Jiraiya called out. His hair grew exponentially as it was fed chakra, turning its composition closer to steel. Connecting with Naruto's ankle, it wrapped around and latched on for dear life.

The blonde haired genin was whipped off of the ground and flung hard into the nearest tree, shattering it on impact. A sickening crunch was heard on collision. Not done there, Jiraiya yanked Naruto back with his hair, in his direction. One hand was controlling the jutsu, the other free palm was open and generating chakra into the shape of a sphere.

"Ahhhh!" Naruto screamed. Say what you will but a rasengan was never 'not painful'. Even if the Elite Jonin of Konoha held back slightly on the power output. Rasengan meet shoulder. Shoulder meet Rasengan. Pretty wouldn't be the first word to describe it as the shroud of chakra surrounding Naruto did its best to resist the incoming chakra but it was no match for the condensed death. Ripping a hole through the orange tracksuit jumper and black shirt, the rasengan continued and met flesh. Blood started pouring out of the shoulder and it was only then that Jiraiya pulled back on the rasengan but not before flinging Naruto with his hair once more into the ground.

"Come on Naruto. I know you're angry but please, let's just talk this out." Jiraiya said as he walked over to Naruto who still had his shroud on.

"Why can't I hit you!?" Naruto questioned to himself as he got angry at himself. All of the pressure in the world was piling on top of the boy and he wasn't sure if he could handle it. A third tail started to grow at the base of Naruto's spine. Speed that Jiraiya had not seen came out of Naruto as he closed the distance between the two of them in mere moments. Returning the favour, Naruto created a rasengan and drived it deep into the chest of his sensei. What he didn't realise was that his was full power unlike Jiraiya, even going so far as having Kyubi's chakra imbued into it.

Crack. Crack. Crack. Three of Jiraiya's ribs had been broken as the blue chakra sphere continued going into his chest. Blood splattered everywhere. Naruto saw Jiraiya's life flash in his eyes. Frustration, anger and rage quickly turned into guilt horror and extreme sadness as Naruto realised he was about to kill the only person who had actually trained him properly as a shinobi. The only one who appeared to give a shit about him when it came to his career as a shinobi and help him actually achieve his dream. He was about to kill his godfather, the closest person who he had to family. Naruto didn't want to be like Itachi.

Immediately, Naruto cancelled the rasengan and his chakra shroud disappeared, now that his emotions had changed.

Naruto saw what he had done. Jiraiya was lying limp on the ground with no signs of movement. _Fuck! If only Tsunade-baachan was here! She would be able to fix him!_ Using what little knowledge he had on the medicinal arts, Naruto checked for a pulse. _Fuck yeah!_ He then stripped his sensei from the waist up and quickly got out his medical gauze tape. Doing as best as he could, Naruto quickly wrapped the wound up and then picked up Jiraiya fireman style.

Going off of instinct because he felt something that way, Naruto headed left and didn't look back. His sensei needed medical treatment and quick.

 **o-0-o**

Groggily, Jiraiya opened his eyes. The first thing that he noticed was a massive pain in his chest and that he was in a hospital. The plain white ceiling gave it away. Doing his best to survey the room, Jiraiya's heart melted (not that he would let anyone know) when he saw the sight next to the bed. Naruto was lying down with his head on the bed whilst sitting in a chair.

It was apparent that he had been there all the time since the fight as his shirt and jacket were nowhere to be seen.

 _Gaki caught me off guard but it is still impressive to see how much he's improved over the past 7 months since I have gotten my hands on him._

At this point, Naruto slowly started to wake up. Upon waking up, the first thing his eyes noticed was that Jiraiya was awake. Immediately jumping up Naruto and a massive grin appeared on his face. "I'm so sorry Jiraiya-sensei. I just caught up in the moment and I'm really sorry" Naruto spoke a mile a minute and babbled on. Tears formed in his eyes and threatened to spill over.

 _How bad am I, if Naruto is like this?_ Jiraiya wondered although roughly, he had a decent idea. The millisecond he woke up, there was a stabbing pain in his chest. The only pain worse than this was when he poured his heart out to Tsunade before she left the village in the hopes of keeping her there.

"Ya finally hit me, although it was a cheap shot when I thought the fight was over ya midget. Did you actually try trying or were you just that shit? I thought my student was better than that." Jiraiya replied with a smirk on his face. He wasn't going to let Naruto see him in pain.

"Don't be a cunt and appreciate me feeling sorry for once, you desperate old fuck!" Naruto hotly shot back. The sadness in the blonde's blue eyes had gone away and were replaced with mirth.

Naruto knew exactly what Jiraiya was trying to do and he played the game for a moment before getting serious once more. "It really scared me Jiraiya-sensei, seeing you like that. I don't want to see you like that ever again. Ever since I delivered you to the doctor's here, I've had lots of time to think about what you said a few days ago."

There was a pause as Naruto reached over and took a sip from his water. "I've come to realise from everything I've heard about the man, he did the best he could, given the situation he was forced into. I still don't like he did it but I can't fault him for it. I just learnt that I have a family and I don't want to lose it. Family is the most important thing and I don't care if it's by blood or by bond. Family is family." Naruto passionately said as he stared into the eyes of the closest person he could consider a father, even if he had only known the man for about a year.

Jiraiya reached over and used most of his energy to place his hand on Naruto's and squeezed. He didn't have much energy for anything else. "Thank you Naruto. You don't know how much that means to an old man with as many regrets as I do." Naruto could only grin as a few loose tears fell from his face.

"You better heal soon, I still need to kick your arse!" Naruto replied, wiping away the tears from his eyes.

Only a few days had passed and despite their being serious wounds on both sides, the bond between master and student grew only stronger.

* * *

 **Author's Note: Due to a few reviews I have received; I will answer the question on the name of the story.**

 **At the time of writing this story, I couldn't think of an ideal name and given where I want to take the Naruto character, I thought the name of the story was a decent fit. If you have other suggestions for ideas such as names, plots or even pairings, please let me know and we can have a discussion on it.**


	4. Would be waiting for me

**Warning: Graphic content below.**

* * *

The bond between master and student had grown leaps and bounds over the past two years. If one was to pinpoint a turning point, they would point to the moment where Naruto found out his lineage and that Jiraiya was his godfather. The ensuing fight tipped over the edge and made Naruto realise what was most important. Family.

Ever since that moment, Naruto had received a newfound motivation to train. He wanted to live up to his family's abilities and not have such a discrepancy between their skills and his own. When you consider that said measuring stick for Naruto was the freaking 4th Hokage!

That hadn't stopped Naruto though, not one bit. In fact, it spurred him on as he loved competition. His body was even beginning to reap the rewards also. Gone were the days of being skinny fat where there was not much to him except for a bit of chub on his cheeks and a tiny gut. Thanks to a massive amount of food that he had to eat daily in combination with his rigorous training, Naruto was seeing gains and lots of them. What made this even better was he was putting on muscle at the best possible time in his life.

The genin was in the peak stage of puberty and his hormones were absolutely on fire. Testosterone levels were at the absolute peak of what they were ever going to be without taking performance enhancing supplements. Considerable size had been put on which resulted in both speed and strength gains.

Growing a lot over the past year meant that Naruto also grew out of his clothes forcing him to change his outfit. The ninja sandals had changed from navy blue to black. Gone was the two-piece orange tracksuit which was a bit too big where he had to roll up the sleeves. Orange was still there in spirit but it had been massively been toned down in colour and amount. Flexible black pants similar to the one's ANBU operatives used replaced the bright orange ones of old. In place of his orange tracksuit top and black short sleeve shirt was a form fitting fleece black vest.

The love of Orange had not been lost though as the drawstrings, the zipper down the middle and the seams around the bottom, arm holes, hood and even the entire fleece hood were all burnt orange. In addition to this, Naruto had started wrapping his hands and bits of his forearms much like his friend Lee. The only difference being that he used orange tape instead of Lee's white.

As much as he hated to admit it, Naruto thought that Jiraiya was right in his choice. A few of the people he had met on his travels had complimented him on his arms and also the outfit. With two of them being girls around his age, Naruto's confidence in his looks sky rocketed as he had never really had people compliment his looks before.

Speaking of women, Naruto would deny it until the cows came home if anyone ever asked but ever since he read the first Icha Icha Paradise book from his sensei, he had been hooked. Hormones were running rampant through his teenage body and Naruto had found out something that all teenagers eventually figure out. Reading only served to help it along.

From that point on, Naruto could see why Jiraiya was so interested in women.

It wasn't just peeping on them though. The moment that his godfather took him on one of his actual research missions which wasn't just peeping on women but gathering intel for Konoha, Naruto got a new appreciation for the man. Sexual appeal was an insanely powerful weapon when used correctly. Going into it, Naruto didn't expect to hear so much intel from other villages. It was definitely a surprise to him how much information people were willing to spill in the hopes of getting laid.

Another eye opener for the genin was that it wasn't just women who were able to get this information out of men but also men getting it out of women. It was a two-way street after all. Men were just as capable of getting information out of women and it was something that Naruto had seen Jiraiya do time and time again.

The old harmless pervert act that Jiraiya liked to put on for the world was lost on Naruto. The 15 year old genin had been forced to find extra accommodation on short noticed more times than he could count on both hands just in the past year. It was clear that when Jiraiya wanted to pull women who weren't sex workers, he could easily do it.

Speaking of…

Naruto found himself discretely having money inserted into his pocket and a note stating that he would need to find accommodation again.

"Fucking Ero-Sennin… surprised he can still get it up at his age." Naruto muttered to himself before he noticed who it was that had arm around his godfather's waist. It was a curvy blonde with big tits. _Went for his type yet again although they do they say that blondes have more fun…_

Jiraiya shot Naruto a smirk on the way out of the bar which Naruto returned. _Guess I have to find my own bed but I don't think I'm quite ready for the night to end._ Naruto thought to himself as he looked around the bar that he was in and noticed that it was essentially dead with no other people around.

Both Naruto were in a resort town in northern Yugakure. The town was populated enough that thankfully, Naruto wouldn't have an issue finding accommodation.

Walking around the town, Naruto found another bar which overlooked the beach. More importantly though, it looked like it had a few more people in it compared to the last one. Upon walking in, he heard music being played and recognised the song. Naruto walked up to the bar and sat down, waiting for a bartender to serve him.

"Aren't you a bit too young to be drinking?" came a comment from beside Naruto. Turning to his side, Naruto was met someone who only looked a few couple of years older than himself at most.

"I could say the same for you Miss…" Naruto trailed off, hoping to get her name. She was very attractive he thought. Prominent amber eyes matched her earrings and long red hair that flowed down her back.

"Karui and to answer your question, ninjas officially become adults once they become genin. Now what's your name blondie?" the aforementioned Karui questioned eyeing up the person who sat next to her.

"Naruto and same. Do you have anything you would recommend to drink?" Naruto asked, looking down at the drink in her hand, wondering what it was.

"Yeah, they make good margarita's but I doubt someone like you would be able to handle them. Karui dismissively replied, taking a sip from her own through the straw.

 _She's got fire, I like it!_ Naruto grinned and when the bartender came over, he asked for a margarita. "Oh yeah, how about a bet?" the blonde from Konoha questioned with a smirk on his face.

Karui couldn't help but be interested in this, her curiosity biting at her. "Alright, spill what do ya have in mind?" the red head hoped she could get a free drink or two out of this.

"How about we have a drinking contest, to see who can handle their liquor better, since you think I'm going to be so bad at this?" Naruto baited and the second he saw her eyes light up, he knew that she was in.

"You're on, Naruto was it? Hope you have a big wallet cause there's no way I'm losing this!" Karui boasted whilst shooting her hand up in the air! Naruto laughed as he was handed the drink by the bartender who he said thanks to.

"So to see who's better at handling their alcohol?" Naruto questioned as he raised his glass. He offered a smile showing his teeth to which Karui nodded, clinked glasses and smirked at Naruto. What Karui didn't know was that this wasn't the first time that he had drunk alcohol. One of the small benefits that Naruto found out was that the Kyubi's chakra filtered the alcohol and made it much harder for the him to get drunk. He was not complaining at all.

"How come a ninja like you is all the way out here?" Karui questioned, hoping to get a bit of information out of the blonde.

"Well funny you say that, my sensei and I are just travelling although the bastard got lucky and kicked me out of the hotel that we were supposed to be staying in." Ever was Naruto frustrated at the fact that he had to find a new place to sleep on such short notice.

Karui broke out in laughter. She was in a fit and almost fell off the barstool that she was sitting on. She didn't though and that was thanks to Naruto who quickly reacted and placed his hand on her lower back and held her up. He pulled his hand off of her body before she stopped laughing. "Sucks to be you! So instead of going to an inn, you decided to go to a bar. Got your priorities right I see."

"Well I met you so I definitely made the right choice." Karui locked eyes for what at most was a second before she quickly turned away although Naruto noticed the hint of red staining her cheeks. After finishing another sip on her margarita, the red head grinned.

 _Shit yeah! It's always Samui that gets hit on. And there's no Omoi to piss me off!_ Karui internally grinned as she liked getting complimented. "You made the right choice in signing up to lose your money drinking?"

"Yeah, drinking in the sight of your body." Naruto tried to say as smoothly as he could. Tried but it didn't come out that well. To any seasoned person on the dating scene, it would have been cringey. To Karui though, she liked the compliment since she wasn't used to receiving them.

And indeed he was looking at her with a keen eye. Karui was wearing a white sleeveless V-neck top showing a bit of cleavage, a grey skirt which had a slit up one side and matching white high heels. The outfit was finished off with an amber choker necklace which matched her earrings and eyes. _She looks really good!_

"Hahaha! You wish!" Naruto boasted before in a bold move, grabbed his drink and skulled the whole thing. "Hey bartender, can I please get two more of those drinks!?"

"And two shots of tequila!" Karui added on before she looked towards her drinking buddy. "What? Since you're paying for drinks, I thought you wouldn't mind." Karui commented, looking innocently at Naruto.

"So how did you go in the chunin exams?" The female asked, hoping to gauge who she was sitting next to. Admittedly, she hadn't gotten that child prodigy vibe off of Naruto but one couldn't be too sure.

"Decent but I didn't win it. Sucks that I haven't been able to enter it in a while cause I would own it! You?" _I'm not going to tell her that sensei already reckons that I'm above the entry level jonin…_

 _Ahh chunin level at best but probably a genin. I got this._

"Same, although I got promoted the second time I participated." _She's probably middle to upper chunin then_ Naruto thought. _I got this._

"Damn, that must have felt good, pretty and strong. You've got everything going for you." Naruto grinned, wishing he could have that same feeling of being a chunin.

"You got that right!" Karui bragged as she held up her arm and flexed, her biceps showing that she worked out hard. _Probably focuses on taijutsu or kenjutsu_ Naruto surmised.

"Wow, yeah for sure, you've got toned muscles!" The blonde commented as he brought up his hand and felt up her arm. A blush appeared on the face of the black woman, not used to the physical contact. "Just like mine, here feel." As he said this, the Konoha genin flexed one bicep and grabbed Karui's other hand and placed it on the flexed bicep.

 _Wow… he's a mix of cute and hot plus his muscles are big!_ Karui blushed as her hand unashamedly moved across his arm. She locked eyes with Naruto and unintentionally, her gaze travelled down to his smiling lips. When they returned back to his eyes, she caught him smirking. It was obvious to both of them that Naruto had caught Karui.

Not that the black skinned girl minded as she leaned ever so slightly forward. Naruto matched her movement as eyes slowly started to drift closer and closer.

"Here are the four drinks you two." The bartender commented as he brought over the drinks although when he glanced at the duo, he wished that he hadn't. The glares that he got weren't pretty at all.

With her heart beating a thousand beats a second, Karui turned to the only thing she could find to take her attention away from the boy she was about to kiss. "Shots! Woooooooo!" Karui cheered and handed her partner in crime the other shot glass. "To a great night!"

Salt was poured on a finger, glasses clinked, liquid was ingested and lemons were bitten into. To further wash the fowl taste away, Karui quickly took a big sip of her cocktail. Naruto did the exact same thing.

"Feeling it yet lightweight?" Karui goaded as she looked at Naruto. _I damn well hope so, I had four drinks before he arrived so he's got a head start._

"A tiny bit. Hey Karui, would you like to go have a dance?" as he asked this, Naruto placed his hand on the black skinned girl's exposed mid thigh.

"Of course! This black booty was made for dancing!" Karui jumped up out of her chair in excitement. She didn't quite expect the dizziness to accompany her though. Stumbling slightly, the red headed chunin placed one of her hands fairly high up Naruto's leg. Gathering herself, she looked up. Hair was all over the place and she couldn't see much. What she could see though was a pair of lips right in front of her. Liquid confidence coursed through her blood stream and Karui did something that she would rarely ever do. She made the first move.

Briefly lips collided before Karui turned to her drink, brought it to her lips whilst looking Naruto directly into the his eyes and finished the cocktail before turning around and sauntering over to the dancefloor.

Thirsty was an understatement of the century for what Naruto was feeling. In more ways than one. Quickly, Naruto finished the rest of his own drink and headed to the dancefloor, almost aimlessly after the sultry girl he had been chatting up. His face was a tiny bit paler than normal though as he hoped he didn't embarrass himself.

The duo started dancing with a bit of distance but that quickly changed as found his groove enjoying the song, incredibly thankful that it was one that he knew the lyrics to. In a brazen move, Naruto deftly grabbed Karui's hand and locked eyes with the woman. Slowly, he raised his left arm to her right and allowed for the distance between the two to increase slightly.

Taking the hint and loving the fact that Naruto was leading, Karui twirled under the hand and happily twirled the other way as Naruto guided her. At the end of it, Naruto pressed his body up against Karui. Both had increased heart rates and neither had forgotten what had almost transpired mere moments ago. Fingers unlocked and both party's hands were free which Naruto made the most of, as he looked Karui in the eyes once more before firmly looking down at her lips. When he saw her smile in return, he brought both of his hands up to her chin and cupped her face.

Lips meshed thinly the first time but evolved quickly as passion took over and both individuals wanting to taste more. Eventually they had to break for air though and contrary to what Karui expected, Naruto did not push for more straight away. With a sway of his hips, dancing was back on the cards.

It felt like ages to Naruto but in reality it had only been three songs before bodies got closer to one another. His chest was firmly pressed into her back and his arms were wrapped around her waist as they swayed to the music. Karui arched her lower back and brought her hands up, running her hands through Naruto's medium length blonde hair. Whilst all of this was happening, the sultry red head swayed her hips back and forth, teasing Naruto with the amount of contact. _He definitely thinks I'm hot._ The compliments from earlier had eased her insecurities in her body but this completely blew them out of the way.

She could feel Naruto's hard, throbbing erection against the seem of his pants, no matter how much he tried to contain it. _It feels great to get all of this attention._ Karui didn't dress up all that often but when she got a solo mission to Yugakure, she saw this as the perfect chance to discreetly have some fun without anyone from back home knowing.

 _Oh. My, God._ Naruto thought to himself. _Pervy Sage was right. Women are cool as fuck!_

Turning around quickly, Karui smirked at Naruto whilst still staying in his arms. With alcohol as her fuel source, the chunin brought her index finger and slowly, but firmly traced it down Naruto's bottom lip, opening it as she then placed her hands on his chest and felt his pecs. Continuing on, she squatted down quickly until her eyes were level with the erection that she could see through the outline of Naruto's pants.

And just like that, before Naruto could wish for anything further to happen Karui was back up into a standing position and grinning like a madwoman. She absolutely knew that she had her dance partner completely in the palm of her hand.

Naruto knew it too and he hated the fact that Karui had all of the power. Boldly, Naruto spun Karui back around and firmly pulled her into his chest. One hand pulled her hips firmly into his crutch and there was no hiding how enjoyable this was for Naruto. The right hand of Naruto traced down the right triceps of Karui before trailing down her body in a diagonal motion, ending just above where her skirt started.

The hand that was formerly on her hip had now risen and ever so slightly traced over the left breast of Karui before it settled on her collarbone. As it inched higher up her neck, Karui was acutely aware of the position and was on razor's edge. A bit of the sensual appeal was lost. That was until Naruto started singing the song lyrics whilst swaying his hips and upper body.

All Naruto did was force Karui to look up at him in the eyes as he sung.

"Cause it's a sweet sensation  
Thinking of all that hot temptation  
You know it's going right where you want  
Yeah, you know what's going on"

Between each line, Naruto kissed down Karui's neck. He started just below her ear and ended right above her clavicle. All of that excitement that was almost lost for the Kumo ninja was right back at the forefront. She could feel how wet she was.

Thinking on her feet, Karui did the only thing she could think of in the moment to get the balance of power back on her side as she placed Naruto's hands firmly on her hips and bent over at the waist. Bending over at the waist, the woman started grinding and eventually twerking all over Naruto's waist. Firmly pressing her ass into the bulge that Naruto had been sporting all night.

Naruto couldn't help but sing along to the song in the hopes that it would take his mind off what was happening. He could feel himself getting closer and the last thing that he wanted to do was embarrass himself so bad.

"I keep breaking my own rules playing your love fool  
Trying to forget about the consequence  
We keep saying we should and yeah we know we could stop  
But really what it all comes down to is"

Unable to take it anymore, Naruto pulled Karui's torso back up to his and spun the red head around. He looked into her eyes and in a surprise to him, Karui sung the chorus.

"It feels so good, it feels so good  
When I'm in your arms"

Naruto grabbed the long hair of Karui that stopped at her shoulder blade and he tugged on it firmly. Karui groaned loud enough that Naruto could hear it and her lips parted slightly. Naruto took this as his sign to kiss his dance partner again.

Their lips were almost on each other when Karui went for it. She caught his lower lip between her teeth and bit on it playfully. Enough to cause a jolt of pain but not enough to bleed.

Shock filled Naruto and Karui deftly slipped out of his grasp and headed towards the bar. "Come on ninja boy, you need a place to sleep tonight yeah?" Karui said whilst only slightly turning her body and head back to face Naruto. She didn't even wait for a response. Given everything that had happened so far, she was supremely confident he was coming back with her.

"True, although I am not sure how much actual sleep we will be getting."

"I don't plan on getting a lot of sleep but I do plan on getting a lot of dick tonight." Once again Naruto was lost for words as he stared at the ass swaying in front of him.

Quickly, Naruto ran over to the bartender, paid for the drinks and even gave a tip despite him ruining the potential kiss from earlier before heading off to where Karui was.

Pulling up by her side, Naruto linked his fingers with the red haired woman, hoping that she didn't notice how nervous he was. Seconds later, the two vanished with only a plume of smoke indicating that the two were once there.

 **o-0-o**

Before they could even make it into the room that Karui had booked for the night, Naruto had made his move. Lips connected with one another in the empty staircase. Passion ensued as lips got wider and wider. Naruto lightly grabbed his partner's bottom lip between his two sets of teeth and pulled it towards him.

Pressed up against the wall, Karui liked the position she was in as she had easy access to be able to roam her hands through Naruto's hair whilst her hips rubbed firmly against his.

"Ugh Naruto." She moaned he bit ever so softly onto her lower lip, opening her mouth, giving the blonde access to her mouth. His tongue deftly entered. He had to learn the hard way in the past that jamming your tongue into a girl's mouth and using it like a piston was a sure fire way to make a them uninterested.

His hands weren't idle during this process either as they latched onto the amber eyed girl's arse and pulled it firmly into his crutch. "You feel so good in my hands." Naruto murmured as he broke free from the kiss for a second.

"You know… We didn't decide on who won the bet. Maybe we can have another bet, see who orgasms first?" Karui slurred slightly. There was a flush on her cheeks as she had never said anything like that before."

"You're going to lose." Naruto said with determination

"No matter who loses, we both win." Karui replied, her breath tickling Naruto's ear, sending shivers down his spine. Hairs stood up all over his body as he took her hand and headed towards their room for the night.

Door flung open and the pair raced into the room, barely able to keep their hands off one another although Naruto had the peace of mind to close the door. Finding their way to the bed, Karui fell first and gazed up at the person that was about to fuck her. She couldn't wait.

Naruto himself was gazing and drinking in the sight of the woman beneath him. He couldn't wait. "Are you just going to stand there and stare or are you actually going to do something?" A smirk quickly soon followed and the Konoha ninja pounced.

The red haired teenager immediately found her hands placed above her head and held loosely. She knew that she was able to break free but the thought of giving control to a stranger that she had only met mere hours earlier seemed all too enticing.

Karui involuntarily arched her lower back and sticked her chest up high as kissed just on the side of her lips. Slowly, he moved to her jawline and went up, stopping just short of her ear. Not stopping there though, he kept going and trailed kisses down the amber eyed girl's collarbone.

"Yes, keep going." Not one to argue, Naruto did just that and brought his free hand down to the white sleeveless V-neck top and pulled it to the side, exposing more of the brown skinned girl's soft skin. Multiple moans followed whilst thin and nimble fingers ran through blonde hair, pulling on occasion when the pleasure was too much for her to handle.

Lips trailed down the collarbone and slowly traversed down the slopes of cleavage on display which elicited yet another moan. Frustrated that there were clothes separating Naruto from what he wanted, his free hand trailed down Karui's firm abdomen which sent shivers down her spine. "This needs to come off now." Naruto stated. He wasn't begging, he was simply stating and sealed it off with a chaste kiss.

"Mhmmm" Karui moaned; her heart rate was going a mile a minute due to the ministrations of her partner for the night.

The woman from Kumo did a slight sit-up and Naruto saw the feint traces of abs. He was in heaven. Still with her hands held high above her head, Karui allowed and encouraged Naruto to pull off her top. Sweat was practically dripping from her body due to the way the blonde made her feel and the all of the dancing she had done earlier.

"Take that vest off and show me that body of yours" Karui practically demanded. If she was going to be naked and have Naruto see her body, including her breasts which she was slightly insecure about, then she was going to get to see the muscles of Naruto.

They didn't disappoint as she brought one of her hands from Naruto's hair to the orange zipper and slowly brought it down, undoing it much like she did any form of resistance from the genin.

Seconds later, all that was left clothed for both parties were their lower bodies. Ninja sandals had been lost along the way. "Ahhh yesss" Karui moaned as her no longer were contained and gripped the bed sheets softly. She knew that she would gripping a lot harder shortly and she couldn't wait!

Despite his intoxicated state, Naruto had half a mind to remember words of advice from his sensei. _When you take off a bra or panties, don't immediately go to the erogenous zones straight away. Girls are used to that, expect that. Guys are stereotyped as being unable to control themselves and looking solely for their release. Take your time!_

The advice from Jiraiya was paying off dividends judging by the sounds coming from her mouth and the way her tight, lithe body squirmed beneath him. Naruto was glad that it wasn't his first time doing this. Experience was key in one night stands.

Naruto lips fervently attacked the clavicles of his partner and made their way down south only they stayed central, Karui was a bit surprised and annoyed when they didn't latch onto one of her nipples. That smirk she saw when she looked into her eyes made her excited and pissed off all at the same time.

Hands gripped her hips and pulled her flat stomach up to Naruto's lips where he peppered her stomach with kisses as his hands made their way up her sides stopping just before her shapely breasts. A vulpine smirk greeted Karui as Naruto's chin rested just above her grey skirt.

"Come on! I'm not going to beg!" The red head almost shouted through gritted teeth, whilst she liked teasing, she also liked having dick inside her.

Hands latched onto breasts and caressed the areola around the nipple. Naruto came back up to Karui's eye line and passionately kissed the woman once again, quickly engaging in a dance with tongues, neither willing to lose all the whilst hips roughly grinded against one another, desperately wishing that there was no clothing between them.

"When are you going to fuck me huh?" Needless to say Karui was getting impatient. She was also starting to get angry at seeing that smug smirk on Naruto's face.

"As soon as I decide I'm done torture, I mean playing with your sexy body." Whilst he said one thing akin to taking it slowly, Naruto had also moved both of his hands down to Karui's hips, locked his fingers beneath her skirt and shimmied it off her body.

"Well then you better know what you are doing _genin-san_ "

 _You just fucked up._

He was going to take it slow but that just spurred Naruto. "Good luck, you're going to need it." The white g string that matched her bra quickly made its way to the floor as Karui bared all in front of Naruto. _Damn she's hot_. Not wasting any time, the genin traced two fingers before turning them so that his palm was facing upwards, inserted said two fingers all the way and then curled them towards himself.

"Ohhhhhh! Yessss!" Karui moaned louder than she had in a long time! She couldn't remember it feeling this good but maybe that was the alcohol impeding her memory and judgement.

Naruto started off firm and at a medium pace of moving his two fingers along the upper wall of Karui's vagina! "Yes, yes, yes! That feels so good!" The grip on the bedsheets exponentially grew tighter as was at the mercy of Naruto's two fingers. Moans that didn't seem possible to get any louder suddenly did with the addition of his tongue to the fold. It took a few goes but he found the hooded clitoris much to the utter delight of Karui.

 _God damn! She's so wet!_ Sounds in the room could be heard that were not coming from either person's mouth. "You're so fucking wet Karui." Naruto called out and despite the fact that her eyes were closed, Karui could practically feel the smirk pressed up to her clit as the tongue ran vertically along it.

"Ahhhh! Uhhhh! T-that's because you're doing this to me. Whatever you do, don't stop; I'm close" Karui didn't have to say anymore as Naruto got the gist of what she was trying to say. Again, remembering advice from his sensei, Naruto placed his palm above where Karui's thin pubic trail started and firmly pushed down.

There was an assault on her g spot from both sides and she couldn't take it much longer. "Ughh fuck yes. Do that, do that!" Karui screamed as she involuntarily sat up slightly. Her toes curled, shivers went down her spine and a tingling sensation enveloped her body. Naruto chose this time to increase the pace with his two fingers inside of the girl and with one final scream, Karui just let loose.

"AHHHHHHHHH!" Karui let out a guttural moan as her orgasm washed over her entire body. Unable to control everything that was going on, she barely registered that feeling of needing to pee. Ever the smartass, Naruto didn't stop doing what he was doing when the red haired woman screamed, signifying her release, he kept going and was unintentionally rewarded fluid gushing out all over his face.

Contiuning despite a cramp forming his hands, the music which was Karui's vocal chords kept him going.

"Ohhhh FUCK YES!" Karui moaned once more and her fists were porcelain white as they gripped the bedsheets in addition to her eyes being closed. She writhed around in pure, unadulterated wanton lust and pleasure. Eventually the cramp in his hand signalled the end and he pulled back his hands and face, both of which happened to be literally dripping in fluid. Bedsheets had already been stained.

Unlike his first time a month ago which ended in tantamount failure, only officially having sex but not really enjoying it due to a lack of experience, seeing the state Karui was in made his ego sore high into the sky. "I think I just won the bet."

All Karui could do was shake her head to the side, it was a struggle to open her eyes but eventually, after her legs stopped shaking, she was able to retort. "Nahhh, I definitely just won."

Naruto leant down and kissed Karui on the lips which she responded to although she didn't really move at all. "Give me a minute, I need to recover but I definitely need to have your cock inside me."

Blood surged through his body when he heard this. In the back of his mind, Naruto wondered whether or not Karui would kick him out after she got what she wanted. It was good to hear that that was hopefully not the case. Taking this brief intermission, Naruto fully disrobed and got the condom out of the packet.

Despite drinking a lot of alcohol, the blue eyed shinobi had absolutely no problems whatsoever holding an erection thanks to the raging hormones going through his body at the moment. It was pulsating and should have made it simple in putting the condom on. That would be true if it wasn't for the fact that Naruto was still getting used to putting them on. It took him three goes to finally get it around the right way but he slid it on in the end.

Dropping back down between Karui's legs, Naruto kissed her once more and pressed himself on the outside of her vagina. Eyes went open as he felt a penis pressing against her and looked down, glad to see a condom and that she didn't have to ask for him to put one on. Neither wanted kids at such a young age. "Well what are you waiting for, put it in!"

Much like before, it took a couple of goes before he got it in the right place, each time having to go a bit lower than what he thought. Unbeknownst to Naruto, he was lucky in the fact that Karui thought this was teasing and not just inexperience in not knowing where the hole happened to be.

When he found the entrance though, it slipped in like butter, given how practically sopping wet Karui was from earlier. "Ahh!" They both moaned at the same time and then immediately busted out laughing. Sex wasn't always about carnal pleasure, there was mishaps and fun along the way!

The first few thrusts were a bit janky but Naruto quietly got into a rhythm. Karui was anything but quiet as she felt a penis inside her for the first time in 4 months. It was glorious.

"Harder, faster!" Karui moaned, loving the feeling. Naruto did just that. He increased the pace of his thrusts and very quickly, he felt the telltale signs of his orgasm approaching. _Fuck, I don't want to cum just yet. Quick, think of old naked ladies Naruto. Ahh shit! Baa-chan's a total milf!_

Trying to think of something else didn't help Naruto and instead tried to focus on flexing other muscles as per advice from Jiraiya in an attempt to shift blood flow from his penis. "Whatever you are doing, don't stop." Karui moaned, unaware of the state that Naruto was in.

To any man who had experience, those words were kryptonite. To Naruto who was having his first enjoyable sexual experience, those words signalled the end. "I'm cumming" Naruto murmured, somewhat embarrassed by the fact that he couldn't last that long. Grunting, Naruto shot rope after rope into the condom. It was a potent orgasm and he fell down beside Karui who was a bit shocked and disappointed.

"Already?" Ideally she would have liked for the sex to go on for a bit longer but she was not dissatisfied given the powerful orgasm she had earlier.

 _Quick, think on your feet!_ "Can you blame me?" Naruto asked as he lay next to the brown woman, getting her to turn and face him. "With how beautiful your face is, how amazing your breasts are and how tight your pussy is, it'd be impossible not to cum that quickly." Naruto boasted, hoping that this worked.

Indeed it did as Karui practically jumped on top of him and kissed him hard on the lips. "Well for your sake Naruto, I hope it doesn't take you long to recover and that you have more than one condom." Karui commnted with a smirk on her face. She was sitting on top of Naruto's waist, his penis resting up against her vagina.

Naruto reached over into his pants and pulled out a string of condom packets attached to one another. There were five left remaining. "This enough?" The red haired woman grin as she bent forward and kissed Naruto again whilst Naruto got another one ready. By the time they broke for air from their kiss, Naruto was already rock hard again and pressing into her clit

A smirk and a raised eyebrow appeared on Naruto's face.

"Shall we?"

 **o-0-o**

Being young was a wonderful thing as it meant that Naruto could run off far less sleep than his sensei. The rest of the night with Karui was utterly amazing as far as he was concerned multiple orgasms were had by both parties and all condoms were used that night. Along the way, Naruto was introduced to the wonderful feeling of a blowjob and he would never look back.

With a final blowjob in the morning, Naruto and Karui bid a fond farewell, both of whom wondered if they would ever meet in the future.

He was tired but that couldn't get rid of the massive shit eating grin that was plastered on his face. Nothing could and as far as the blonde was concerned, he was doing whatever the opposite of the walk of shame was. Sex was fucking awesome!

As he made his way back to the room where he was originally going to be sleeping the night before, he noticed the same woman Jiraiya was leaving with walk out of the motel.

Opening the door, Jiraiya wasn't surprised to see his godson at all. He wasn't the best sensor but he would be a fool if he couldn't sense the walking chakra battery that was Naruto. He took one look at the blonde haired boy and saw the look on his face."

Tears filled in his eyes and he raced over to hug Naruto. "I'm so proud of you! You're by far the better student compared to your father. How was it, who was it and what did she look like!?"

 _Is it that easy to tell?_ Naruto wondered but then figured to a super pervert, it must have been.

Ignoring the comments about who was the better student, Naruto answered the only important questions as far as his godfather was concerned. "It was great! I got my first blowjob, made her orgasm thanks to the tips you gave me sensei! Oh and she's a Kumo chunin; medium to long red length hair, amber eyes, firm body with abs poking through and I'm guessing what

pwere small b-cups. Now hurry the fuck up sensei! I'm starving!" Naruto replied although he had turned around and headed towards the door.

Jiraiya did not move. He had stars in his eyes. _Red head like his mother, eyes like Tsunade and a foreign kunoichi who's a higher rank than him! He really is the chosen one!_

 **o-0-o**

After a long breakfast, Naruto and Jiraiya quickly left the town that they were staying in. As they were on the road less travelled, Naruto had now converted all of his clones from working on raw chakra control to purely raiton chakra control. Over the course of two years that he had been training with Jiraiya, Naruto had increased the amount of shadow clones he dedicated to training. It had steadily increased from 10 and was now comfortably sitting at 50. Naruto predicted he could go up to 100 without there being any adverse side effects.

He didn't have 100 blocks of rubber though which was currently the limiting factor. Naruto was in the final stages of completing the last stage of his elemental training before Jiraiya would allow him to go gung-ho in creating his own ninjutsu.

Early on into the training the pair ran into a huge conundrum. Naruto had an extremely potent raiton affinity. Jiraiya did not. He only knew the basic jutsus and a B-ranked one which he did indeed teach Naruto but it left the issue of Naruto's ninjutsu repertoire sorely lacking. In the end, Naruto would have to come up with own jutsus to fill in the gap until he could go back home to Konoha and do some research.

A few had already been created but Jiraiya wanted Naruto to complete the final stage of raiton manipulation before he worked on the final major goal of the training trip. Completing the Rasengan.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

 **Hey, I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Please let me know if you have any constructive criticism or ideas for the story that you think may make it better.**


	5. Where the crowds will cheer

"Naruto should be arriving back in the village soon shouldn't he Lady Tsunade?" Shizune questioned as she held Tonton in her arms.

Overlooking the village Tsunade's eyes narrowed ever so slightly. She could feel something in the distance. "Yes, the village needs him to return. There is too much happening to be away now." The leader of the village replied.

She didn't get a response. She didn't need one. A few questions were on her mind. How strong had he gotten and more importantly, was she going to win the bet she had going on with Jiraiya and most importantly, whether or not her teammate had corrupted poor young Naruto!?

 **o-0-o**

"There's no place like home." Naruto commented as they finally came over the crest of the hill and found themselves within sightlines of the village. From the outskirts, it didn't look like too much had changed and that didn't bother Naruto one bit.

"Yeah, absence makes the heart grow fonder" Jiraiya wistfully replied, looking on in the distance.

The duo said nothing more and continued on their walk towards the village, not in any major rush to get back home. Sure, Naruto eagerly awaited seeing his friends once again, but he knew that they wouldn't be going anywhere. Idly, he wondered how strong they had gotten. He couldn't wait to test himself on real missions once again.

 _It's gonna be great to have regular measuring sticks again, comparing everything to Pervy sage sucks and just makes you depressed._ Naruto knew what he had accomplished on his training and he was every bit proud of his achievements but he just wanted to see where he stacked up against the rest of the village. He left the village a genin and looking back on it, it was a fair rank and that he didn't deserve anything higher.

Now though… well the only thing about Naruto that was genin was his title and that was going to change very soon if Naruto had anything to say about it!

That though would have to wait as Naruto needed to find a place to sleep. He signed over his lease on the final day in Konoha three years ago so that he wouldn't have to pay rent. Thankfully for the blonde, he didn't have to worry about rent as Jiraiya had started siphoning money from his parents' fund into his bank account. The fact that Jiraiya, one of the richest shinobi in the world thanks to his widely popular book series added a bit more on top meant that Naruto was comfortable financially.

Lost in thoughts over what he would have to do on his first day back in the village, Naruto didn't realise how far he and his sensei had travelled. They had reached the front gates. "Names and registrations please." The two gate guards didn't even look up at the people in front of them.

Jiraiya placed his hand on Naruto's shoulder, allowing him to go first. The second that the documentation was placed in front of them and Kotetsu looked at it, he jumped up in shock and looked up with fear in his eyes. He then switched over to Naruto who had his eyes full of mirth whilst his hand held out all of his documentation.

Jiraiya and Naruto shortly left the front gates and found themselves inside the village. Naruto took a massive breath through his nose, filling his lungs with Konoha air. _Home sweet home._

 **o-0-o**

 _Is that really him?_ A million thoughts ran through the mind of Sakura when she saw her former teammate and none of them were processed. _He's definitely grown… and changed his fashion style._

"Naruto, Naruto, is that really you?" Hearing his name, the genin turned around and looked to where it came from. Familiar pink hair filled his vision and he briefly had a look at his former teammate. The dress from three years ago was gone as she had replaced it with a red sleeveless blouse. She also happened to be wearing a pink skirt which stopped mid thigh along with the yoga shorts below. To finish off the look, Sakura had knee high black boot.

"Hey Sakura, how's it going?" Questioned with a smile on his face. Seeing a familiar face rarely hurt and memories of a crush came flooding back.

"Wow, you've gotten taller. You're taller than me now." Sakura couldn't help but notice along with the fact there were no sleeves covering those muscular arms.

"Thank you, yeah, the three years definitely were kind to me." Naruto laughed and shrugged the back of his head.

 _He seems more mature than before._ A slight blush appeared on her face as her eyes drifted downward slightly. "So Naruto, do you think I've become more of a woman?"

Naruto grinned. "Well you definitely look more capable than before" to which Sakura wasn't sure how to take that. On one hand, he didn't even comment on the question she asked him. On the other, he gave her a compliment which she appreciated more than her looks. It wasn't a secret back in the days that Naruto and Sasuke did the heavy lifting in team 7, something she was looking to change.

Before she could respond, her attention was taken away as a plume of smoke appeared besides herself and her former teammate. "Hey, Naruto! Sexy Jutsu!" The smoke slowly faded away to reveal a woman with black hair and no clothes whatsoever.

"Well Whaddya think?" said jutsu reverted back to normal and Konohamaru appeared, indicating that he was the one who used the technique. Sakura was absolutely mortified at the technique. "Not too bad in the curves department huh?"

Naruto chuckled; Fondly remembering the past where he would pull the same technique. Now that he was older, he saw just how insulting it was to women. "Konohamaru, I'm not that scrawny kid anymore and you shouldn't be using a jutsu like that either. You're better than that although I can tell your chakra control has improved." Naruto commented whilst throwing in a subtle wink that Sakura didn't catch.

Konohamaru did though and the young loyal follower got the hint that Naruto didn't want him to do it in front of women. However, he got a compliment out of it which made grin.

 _Well I'll be, it's not just the outside that has changed._ It was clear to Sakura that this new Naruto was reshaping the opinion of the boy she knew 3 years ago. She couldn't wait to meet Sasuke and reunite Team 7. The new and improved Team 7.

"Naruto, we've got places to be." Jiraiya commented, eager to go see his own former teammate.

Naruto turned to his sensei, nodded and then turned back to his friends. "See ya Sakura, Konohamaru, Udon and Moegi." The genin said before vanishing via a shunshin, leaving the those watching with curiosity as to how strong this new Naruto happened to be.

Tsunade was not surprised at all when Naruto and Jiraiya appeared in her office without going through the normal channels. Jiraiya was never one for rules and she knew that Naruto would take any chance he could to annoy her. "So I take it your training proved to be fruitful I hope?" The Fifth Hokage mused as she leaned back into her chair, hoping to get some information out of Naruto.

Naruto shot his sensei a raised eyebrow. "You didn't tell her?" he wondered with surprise. Admittedly, he thought that the Hokage would have known.

A shit eating grin formed on the face of Jiraiya. "Nope. Told her absolutely nothing. Oh and by the way brat, she wasn't too happy about that either." Quickly after Jiraiya said this, the true opinion of Tsunade showed through her facial expression. Gone was the slight smile and was replaced with a scowl. Whilst she knew she could curb Jiraiya, she could never quite control him and it irked her. She was beyond curious at whether her gamble with Jiriaya was in her favour or not.

Jiraiya saw a glint in the eye of his godson and suddenly realised that maybe it wasn't the best option to give Naruto this much power. His survival instincts were kicking in real fast and they were telling him to leave immediately.

"Well Tsunade-baachan! Pervy Sage taught me absolutely nothing about being a shinobi and taught me everything about being a man!" As he finished this statement, he didn't hide it at all when he stared at his boss' open cleavage with a grin on his face that he had seen so many times.

Fury. That was the only thing close to what Tsunade could describe her emotions as being. Jiraiya, not so much. Instead, he was feeling two very distinct emotions. Shock and fear. _I'm going to get you back for this you damn brat!_ "Well What do ya know, I've got a mission to go on!" it looked as if it was down to miliseconds from where Jiraiya previously was to where the paperclip was now embedded into the wall.

Tsunade mustered up the best poker face she could. "Please tell me you are joking, Naruto-kun." Whilst the poker face was applied, the voice was sickly sweet and promised a world of pain.

People who could turn your face into mush, repair it and then turn it into mush once more scared Naruto and he did what he had always done. Hide nervousness through laughter. "Hahaha, you should have seen the look on his face Baa-chan. It was so totally worth it."

A small smirk appeared and Naruto thanked kami as it looked like he was in the clear. "So tell me Naruto, just how strong are you?" Tsunade questioned as she sized him up. It was clear that he had grown significantly and had packed on bunch of muscle. She was expecting him to say that he was a taijutsu specialist given the size of them.

This made the genin think. "Honestly… Don't know. I generally lost when sparring Jiraiya-sensei except for that one time I got lucky. Gave him a few good scars though." A tick mark appeared on her forehead. _Generally lost to Jiraiya? You and everyone in the village could say the same if the pervert was serious. Gave him a few good scars huh? I wonder if they were when you were lucky. Regardless, that doesn't tell me much at all._

"I see, show me what ya got kid." Tsunade commented as she rested her hands underneath her chin.

Naruto was surprised. Ideally, he would have liked to get the ball rolling on a new apartment but one couldn't exactly turn down offers from their kage. "Oh, right now?"

The Hokage nodded. "Mhmm, I have someone I'd like you to go up against. I've kept him off of missions for a few days so he's fresh and ready for just this moment." She said and there was a slight twinkle in her eyes. Naruto and Sakura who were in the room both saw it and had an idea where this was going to. "Your opponent will be" before she could finish, there was a knock on the door.

The door opened to reveal Shikamaru and Temari. "Is that? It is! Naruto, it's you!" Shikamaru grinned

Naruto smiled also. It was awesome seeing another familiar face. "Hey Shika! How've you been?" The blonde walked over and offered his hand to which Shikamaru. When they shook hands though, Naruto's face morphed into a grin which had the tell-tale signs of 'I know something you don't know'

A slight bit of hesitation built up in Shikamaru. Naruto turned to Temari. "It's good to see you again Temari, I'm still annoyed you didn't let me get Gaara drunk a few months ago. It would have been heaps of fun!" Whilst walking over towards the Suna kunoichi, Naruto held his arms open for a hug.

She returned the hug briefly but there was a scowl on her face. "No it wouldn't and you know it! It's hard enough looking after him when he's sober and I don't want to even imagine what it would be like looking after a drunk Kazekage!"

Everyone in the room was shocked. Even the Kage Tsunade was. She couldn't imagine a drunk Gaara! Sakura couldn't help but notice that Naruto was a lot more familiar with Temari than before. She was also reminded of the psychopath that almost killed her during the chunin exams invasion. She had no idea how someone like Naruto could be friends with him.

"Ahh it would have been no big deal, I beat Gaara once before and I could do it again." _That's an awfully big claim gaki, surely that's overconfidence since That's the Kazekage we're talking about_ Sakura thought when she heard her former teammate brag.

"So do this mean I'll be fighting be sparring Shikamaru?" Naruto turned his attention back to the leader of the village.

Shikamaru was confused. "Nah, I'm just here to drop off some paperwork."

"Your opponent is out there." Tsunade interjected and point out the window. Curious, Naruto walked over, stuck his head out the window and saw yet another familiar face.

"Kakashi! So I guess that you are my opponent?"

 _He used to add sensei on the end of that_ Kakashi noticed. He wasn't sure if he was looking into things too much, "Well you're half right?" Kakashi stood up from his kneeling spot and walked past Naruto into the Hokage's office. "It's Naruto and Sakura, the two of you. So should we get started or should we give you some time to rest Naruto-kun?" Kakashi questioned with his pretty much at this point patented one eyed smile.

"Nah, I'm ready to kick things off!"

"Well then let's make our way to the old stomping grounds shall we?" The former sensei of Team 7 stated before disappearing in a plume of smoke.

 **o-0-o**

"So are you two dating or what?" Naruto casually commented without looking at either Temari or Shikamaru.

"Not even close idiot." The nara replied with a bored expression and his hands in his pockets.

Temari was about to say something before Naruto cut in. "Oh cool, so Temari, do you want to go out on a date tonight? We can finally spend some time together without Gaara watching over our shoulders." Naruto said, looking directly into Temari's obsidian eyes.

Put on the spot, she didn't know what to say; flattered as she was with the slight blush on her cheeks indicating that she liked the attention. "Umm. Ermm." At this point, Shikamaru was pointedly staring at her, intent on hearing what she had to say.

"Hahahaha. You should have seen the look on the face of Shika. He's never paid anywhere near as much attention during the academy." Naruto couldn't contain his laughter. Immediately, the two realised what was going on and there were two very different reactions. Temari smirked and then proceeded to chuckle, realising what Naruto was up to. Shikamaru on the other hand had a scowl marring his face whilst thinking of all the ideas he was going to get revenge.

"No, the reason why we're together is because I've been running back and forth between the villages getting ready for the chunin exams." Temari responded, cutting off any reply from Shikamaru.

"Man, the chunin exams… That brings me back."

Shikamaru took this as a chance to enact some small form of getting even at Naruto. "What are you going to do about the chunin exams?"

"Well I'm going to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and I'm all out of gum." Let it be known that it would be impossible to stop Naruto from bragging.

Shikamaru smirked. _Naruto hasn't changed one bit._ "That's good because then maybe you will be able to catch up to everyone else."

Shikamaru didn't expect Naruto to get his comment and even if he did, he expected Naruto to get frustrated. He didn't though, judging by the facial expression, Shikamaru guessed proud.

"Good. If it took anyone in our group more than three years from the exams from hell to graduate chunin, then I'd question if they ever would. Our year was a talented bunch."

 _I guess he has changed. He's gotten smarter and more mature._

"Having said that, I can guarantee that I won't be the last one of us to make Jonin." Naruto finished off with a smirk.

"And won't be the first either." At this point Naruto raised an eyebrow. "Neji's already made Jonin."

"Oh nice, good on him. Still beat him though" Naruto winked. "Oh and I've got to go but one final thing, you two look good together." The genin commented before disappearing via the shunshin. Both Shikamaru and Temari had blushes on their face and refused to look at one another.

Shikamaru started speaking; in a desperate attempt to change the topic. "So, how strong is he?"

Temari smirked. "You'll find out soon enough." She wasn't about to let Shikamaru know about the outcome of their spars.

 **o-0-o**

in a change of events, its was Naruto who was the one who arrived at the old training grounds of Team 7 latest.

"Oh, sorry, I was too busy playing matchmaker and then got lost on the road of life." Naruto laughed as he rubbed the back of his head. Sakura scowled.

"That's completely understandable Naruto." Kakashi nodded as if it was completely unavoidable.

 _These two idiots_ Sakura couldn't help but think to herself.

Kakashi pulled out two bells from his pocket. "Let's see how far you two have come. The rules are the same as the first time we were here. I don't care how we get these bells, just get them and remember…"

"If we aren't prepared to kill ya, then we won't get the bells." Sakura finished the statement of her former sensei with a smirk on her face. Naruto had one as well although quite a bit larger.

He couldn't wait to finally test himself against someone other than Jiraiya.

Starting off slow, Naruto threw a couple of shuriken at Kakashi which he didn't expect to connect at all. Kakashi dodged by falling to the ground and letting the metal fly over his head. Returning favour, the jonin threw some stars at Naruto.

Naruto only moved enough to just get out of the way. There was no wasted movement. Something which Kakashi picked up on.

 **o-0-o**

So did Tsunade and Shizune who were watching on from afar. Jiraiya who was also watching already knew this. "Not bad" Tsunade commented. It wasn't that impressive all things considered but it was a step in the right direction.

Shizune gave more praise than her master. "Incredible."

 **o-0-o**

Sakura was unable to see her Kakashi. _He's not left, right, behind or in front of me_ and as she looked up, the pink haired girl saw nothing. _That means there is only one place that he could possibly be hiding._

"Hyahh!" Sakura screamed as jumped up and slammed her fist into the ground. Shockwaves rocked the earth and jagged rocks verging on boulders split off into the air, leaving Kakashi was underground speechless. Naruto wasn't fairing any better.

 _Holy crap, she's a mini Baa-chan!_

Jiraiya couldn't help but chuckle. "I see, so you've created a mini me."

Tsunade couldn't help but take it personally. "And? I don't see how there is anything wrong with it?"

Jiraiya couldn't help but make another comment. "Of course you wouldn't." The man tried his best for his comment to sound as innocent as possible. It did not work.

Turning around, Tsunade levelled a glare at Jiraiya. "What's that supposed to mean!? Plus, I don't see Naruto doing out there so I guess he was right, you're a has been teacher and I'm going to win this bet!"

 _These two..._ Shizune who was watching the two bicker like an old married couple could only sigh. Much like Tsunade however, she was interested to see just how strong Naruto had become.

The Toad Sannin pretty much said the only thing that could halt Tsunade's aggression and replace it with curiosity. "Didn't need to."

This threw the two women for a loop. Surely, Jiraiya had to of taught something to Naruto. It couldn't have just been a joke between the two? Seeing the looks on their faces, Jiraiya decided to throw them a bone. "Kid did it all himself. I was just there to guide him when he had some questions he wanted answered."

It was as if Tsunade and Shizune were looking at Naruto in a new light. They were suddenly very much interested in what was going to happen next, wondering what Naruto had managed to come up with on his travels. He was definitely a creative and exuberant child.

Naruto who was unaware of this conversation going on simply went onto the task at hand. He rushed forward with a few clones by his side. Each of them formed their very own rasengan in their hands.

 _Well I see his chakra control has gotten better but his strategy could do with a little bit of work._ Kakashi thought to himself as he pulled up his modified bandana to reveal his sharingan. For all he knew, this could be a trap to lure him into a false sense of security.

The clones moved the speed of that of a high chunin. Which with the sharingan included made it relatively easy to dodge, the last being a clone coming up from the ground although Kakashi jumped into the air before throwing a kunai at the clone, forcing it to dispel.

In a different turn of tactics, Naruto used the multi shadow clone jutsu to create a thousand copies of himself. It reminded everyone in audience apart from Jiraiya who had seen this many times just how much chakra the genin had. Great amounts of chakra meant nothing if you couldn't use it though.

 _So it's a war of attrition I take it. I guess it's where Naruto's greatest strength over me so it's no wonder he'd try this tactic against me._

And so begun the fight against a thousand clones. Killing off one was relatively easy despite the high chunin / medium special jonin speed in which they were moving at but when there were seven attacking you at once, you had to keep your speed up pretty fast.

Tsunade watching on couldn't help but be a little disappointed. For all of the hype that Naruto and Jiraiya been building up, he had yet to deliver on it in her eyes. As far as she was concerned, there was nothing that couldn't have been taught in six months. It was quite underwhelming considering Jiraiya had taught the fourth Hokage.

Naruto was unaware of the thoughts of his kage but he knew that he wanted to end the fight sooner rather than later. He didn't want to have to wait until sunrise!

"Hey so Kakashi, we can do this the easy way or the hard way." One of the Naruto's before he reached into his pocket and pulled a teal coloured book.

"Is that!?" The silver haired jonin couldn't help but contain his excitement about may or may not have been in Naruto's hand.

Naruto grinned. "Yep, this is the new copy of Icha Icha: Tactics. We can do this the easy way which is you giving one of my clones the bells tied to your hip and I'll give you the book, or we can play the hard way and you can find out what happens to A, this copy and B, I'll spoil the book before you get the chance to read it." Naruto couldn't help but smirk like a madman.

 _Ooooh, that's nasty Naruto. I like it_ Sakura giggled the second she saw what Naruto had done.

"Gaki's an evil little asshole. I love it hahahaha." Tsunade laughed loudly. Shizune couldn't keep a straight face whilst Jiraiya smirked.

Shock filtered over the face of Kakashi and he readily panicked. "Calm down Naruto, let's not too carried away, I'm sure that we can come up with an agreement that everyone enjoys." Kakashi said as he brought his hands up to his face in a placating manner, his mind going into overdrive trying to think of a way to get out of this bind.

Naruto shrugged his shoulders. "If you're not going to give the bells up, then I guess it's the hard way." The blonde opened the book and brought his hand to the first page which were credits and ripped the page out of the book.

Jiraiya died on the inside seeing this happen but he couldn't help but marvel at his godson's ability to render an elite jonin such as Kakashi useless like this. He was going to give Kakashi so much shit for this.

Kakashi heard that rip and was horrified. Naruto showed him the page and his sharingan could see the small printed writing and it let him know it was the credits page. It let him know that whilst Naruto wasn't kidding around, he still had one more chance to salvage this before things got ugly.

"Wait wait wait! You win Naruto, here are the bells, just don't harm the book anymore!" Kakashi begged. He couldn't bear to see Naruto damage his precious like that again. One of the clones walked up to Kakashi and took the bells, felt them in his hand to make sure that they were real and then nodded to the boss.

"Job's done boys, you can all dispel now dattebayo!" Naruto said in tone which screamed out that he was patting himself on the back. The clone used speed to match a entry level jonin, also surprising Kakashi. Once the bells were delivered to the original, it too dispelled. "Here's your book Kakashi." Naruto called out as he chucked both the page that he had ripped out and the book up in the air.

With a shunshin, Naruto arrived next to Shizune who was still giggling at what she had just witnessed. It was very rare to see Kakashi so lost and helpless, it looked adorable and cute.

"So, job done granny. I win" Tsunade doubted that the smirk on Naruto's face would go down today. He looked so damn smug.

Despite laughing before, Tsunade was scowling. "This was supposed to be a test of your skill Naruto and to see how well you worked in a team again; given your extended absence."

Cheekily, Naruto couldn't but fire back. "Isn't completing the mission with least amount of abilities shown a skill in itself? I mean we're not supposed to show our big tricks right and if no one knows what I can do since leaving then I will have a leg up on everyone."

"Right on kid." Jiraiya vocalised, showing his godson that he supported his decision.

"Be that as it may, I still need to know roughly what sort of level you are so I know how to assign you on missions.

"Come on 'Nade, where's the fun in that. Alright I'll spill, Naruto's definitely not genin and he's a frontline fighter so something like ANBU would be the worst for him. Plus, this at least gives you the chance to say that our bet was even because if Naruto showed you everything, then you'd be having to pay up." Jiraiya said with a suggestive grin which she knew all too well.

She was very much familiar with the bet that the two had going on and she did not want Jiraiya to win. She was not going to subject herself to the humiliation and torture! "Fine! You happy? I'll give him missions as if he's a chunin but he won't get the rank until I see more!" in the back of her mind, the experienced woman got this feeling, call it gut intuition if you will that Naruto was holding back quite a significant amount. Now she was really curious to see how good Naruto had gotten.

"You two had a bet? What was the bet!?" Naruto wondered.

Tsunade rolled her eyes. "It doesn't matter but it was a bet to see who was able to train the better ninja."

Eyes went wide, "Ohhh, well why didn't you say so? I guess that I could have shown off more to win, I mean I didn't even show off any elemental ninjutsu."

Kakashi who walked over, still in shame from losing in such a way, spoke up. "Oh? So what's your element Naruto?" he knew that there would be a few jutsu he could teach given the 1000+ in his arsenal.

"Well, funny you should mention that Kakashi, have a look at this." Naruto commented with a grin on his face, eager to see the reaction of his former sensei. He brought his left hand and clenched his right wrist. "So this is the Rasengan right?" At this point there was a sphere of chakra spinning at a rapid rate. Seeing the nod, he continued his demonstration. "Well then I played around a bit and made this."

Right as he finished this, chirps of lighting spilled into the atmosphere and a familiar noise was heard. It was the sound of a thousand birds. "Chidori" Kakashi whispered as he looked on in amazement. It was a sentiment shared by everyone barring Jiraiya. _To think that Naruto was capable of recreating the jutsu just from memory is astonishing._

"But then I remember when I asked you about it and you said only those with the sharingan could use it properly. So I went one better." Unfortunately for those in attendance, Naruto cancelled the jutsu, not wanting to show it off just quite yet.

"What?" Sakura questioned, not knowing the importance of said statement from Naruto. As far as she was concerned the chidori was an already powerful jutsu, how could it be improved?

Tsunade and especially Kakashi knew the brevity of Naruto's comment. "You, you completed it! That must be an S-rank ninjutsu!" The elite jonin commented in shock, theory crafting in his head what that potential jutsu must have been like.

It wasn't the chidori that he had improved. It was the rasengan.

"Well, I've got places to be, things to do, so with that said, do you mind if I head off?" Naruto replied, turning his attention back to Tsunade.

Tsunade replied absentmindedly with a shake of the head, already going through things in her mind.

Naruto took the message and vanished in with a shunshin that left a bolt of lightning hitting the ground where once stood.

Stunned into near silence at what he had just heard, Kakashi turned to Jiraiya who was still sitting in the tree. This was an action that brought Sakura to face her former teammate's sensei.

"Just how strong is he Jiraiya-sama, to be able to complete the rasengan is nothing short of impressive?" Kakashi couldn't help but wonder out loud. Sakura was very much eager to hear the man's opinion. She didn't know too much of what was going on but she got the gist of it. Naruto had gotten stronger. A lot stronger.

"At minimum, jonin. As I said earlier, the kid is good. Really good. Don't ever let him find out I told you that."

Sakura couldn't help but look down at the ground and clench her fists in frustration. _I'm still behind. I'm only a chunin and yet Jiraiya says Naruto is at minimum a jonin level fighter? How? I put so much into my training and yet the distance between us has increased. I still don't even know how good Sasuke is._

It was then that another thought entered her mind. _He didn't really talk to me either, or as I guessed he would do, asking me to go on a date with him. Did I do something wrong?_

 **o-0-o**

Unaware of the internal monologue going on inside Sakura's head, Naruto made a beeline for a real estate agency. Well multiple Naruto's did. The shadow clone jutsu had a lot of perks and he used it to make the most out of the situation.

Given the instructions to find what they could when it came to two bedroom apartments near the centre of Konoha with views of the monument and to report back in two hours, they did just that.

As this was happening, the Original blonde haired genin went to a bedroom store and shopped around until he found a king sized mattress along with the bedframe and various other items. Unfortunately for Naruto, he couldn't get everything he wanted that night and only managed to get the mattress and the bedframe. He could be patient though.

Once the two hour mark hit, clones started to dispel and filtered through all of the information. After deciding on the one he liked, given the details provided, Naruto headed down to the shop where the apartment was being listed.

Despite a disgruntled look, the branch manager wasn't going to turn away money and he signed the paper work so that Naruto was now the proud renter of a two bedroom, one bathroom and ensuite apartment.

He couldn't be any happier. Overjoyed as this was finally the start of a new Naruto, no longer reliant on anyone able to be the person who he wanted to be.

Upon entering the room, he was pleased at the choice. He had to pay a bit of a premium to get the new apartment with timber flooring, good kitchen and large entertaining area but it was worth it, the genin figured. He had money coming in from his fund thanks to his parents and he was about to start taking missions once more which would be another source of income.

Plus, having a nice apartment definitely was a bonus when it came to bringing girls around!

The apartment was completely empty save for the mattress and yet to be assembled bed frame and Naruto wouldn't have it any other way. That first night sleep in his new apartment was one of the best night's sleep that Naruto had had in a long, long time.


	6. When they see my face

His first night back in Konoha was good. Naruto had slept well in his new place and had a shower to freshen up. After locking up, the blonde made his way out to the market district and picked up some breakfast. He wasn't yet in the position where he could cook for himself but he knew he would be soon.

Once breakfast was done, Naruto headed over to the mission halls. He hadn't yet been assigned a team and if anyone asked, he wasn't too fond of the times when he was on Team 7. There was the hope that he could get some missions and take the chunin exams when they next came around; Naruto knew that he was capable enough of passing and then he could hopefully get a new team to work with.

As he headed over to the halls, he couldn't help but notice that there was a brown hawk flying above and wondered who it was that was delivering the message.

"Hey Baachan, do ya have a mission for me?" Naruto greeted quite informally, walking into the room. A tick mark appeared on the forehead of Tsunade.

"Well I do have some D-rank missions for you to ease you back into shinobi life." The Hokage retorted

A look of sheer horror crossed his face. "What come on! I've gotten so much stronger than last time, I need at least a C-rank!"

"It is very rare for a genin to get a C-rank mission or above, genin-san" Tsunade couldn't help but grin mightily as she won this over Naruto. Clenched fists shortly followed as he was not so subtly reminded just where he stood in the heirachy of the village. _That needs to change and fast!_

"Besides, I was planning on putting you back with Team 7. You should be waiting for Kakashi and Sakura."

An annoyed look crossed his face. "I'd rather not if I can avoid it?" Naruto questioned with hope. He was not unaware that he had a favourable connection with the Hokage considering that he brought her back to the village and he hoped that he could use it.

This threw Tsunade for a loop, the Naruto that left she was sure would have loved to be back on the old Team 7 squad. "I see, and why is that?"

Naruto chuckled. "Haha, let's just say that I don't fond memories being on that team and the team itself was quite toxic. I just want a new start so that I can get my promotion to chunin and then work on becoming the Hokage."

Tsunade couldn't help but want more information. "You're going to have to give a more convincing speech than that kid if you want me to change my mind. You could easily make chunin in that team if what Jiraiya had to say is anything to go by."

Pride swelled in Naruto as he heard the compliment from the strongest woman in the world. Sure, she wasn't saying that she believed he was strong but she did trust Jiraiya which had to count for something.

"Well to begin with, I was physically abused by a teammate." Shizune who was in the room was shocked. So was Tsunade. The accusation in the wording used was not one to be taken lightly. "Admittedly, I kept asking Sakura for dates but I don't think that should result in being punched in the face." Shizune had to say that Sakura had grown up a lot over the years but could see where Naruto was coming from.

"In addition to that, I was constantly getting verbally compared to a former teammate negatively constantly, our sensei if you could call him that only taught us the tree climbing exercise in the six months that he was our leader. He was three hours late to everything and encouraged animosity between myself and a former member, which may have been one of the reasons why said former member defected the village." Sure, the way that it was worded didn't paint Kakashi in the best light but Naruto was listening to a rule from the one who he considered his only sensei, Jiraiya.

 _Be selfish. Sometimes you have to be selfish and step on a few toes to get what you want._

"I understand your concern but sometimes you don't get the luxury of the people you work with. It would take a little time before a transfer can become official but we will look into it for you." Tsunade diplomatically said to which nodded.

 _Fair enough I guess._

Before Naruto could offer further to his case, the door to the Hokage's office was sprung open by a special Jonin. "Sorry for the interruption Hokage-sama, but we've just received a level 1 emergency dispatch." She said rushing over to the leader of the village and handed her a scroll.

Upon reading it, Tsunade's eyes shot wide open and she couldn't help but read out loud "The Kazekage has been captured by the Akatsuki."

A bolt of electricity went through Naruto and froze him to the floorboards. "No" he whispered. Gaara was strong. Too strong to let something like this happen.

"Genin Naruto." The tone of voice change was picked up on by Naruto. It was clear to see in his eyes that Tsunade was a real leader to be impressed by. "This doesn't have time to wait. Ideally I would like time to evaluate your skills further but I'm trusting Jiraiya's call that you are competent. We won't have any other ninjas available so go and find Sakura and Kakashi and head off as soon as you can.

"Right away." Naruto didn't need to be told twice. Sure, he wasn't too big of a fan of them but he couldn't deny their abilities, if Gaara was injured then having Sakura was a no brainer and Kakashi was well, Kakashi. One of the village's strongest shinobi.

Naruto channelled a large amount of chakra and converted it into lightning chakra. It surrounded his body faintly to the point where Tsunade and Shizune could see it. One second Naruto was in the office and the next, he was gone.

 _Fast!_ Both of the women thought and realised that Naruto had indeed been holding back.

 _It wasn't the lightning armour of the 4_ _th_ _Raikage and he isn't close to being as fast but that was mid-level jonin speed there. He's definitely gotten stronger._

Naruto raced across the village to where Sakura still lived with her parents. It only took a minute. Frantically, Naruto knocked on the door, barely managing to control his temper to the point where he stopped channelling all of the raiton chakra into his body.

"Naruto. What are you doing waking me up this early!?" Sakura said, surprised to be woken up this early.

He wasn't in the mood for chit chat. "Hokage's orders. S-rank mission. Front Gate 5 minutes. Go." Naruto said with force to which Sakura could only nod in surprise. She hadn't seen Naruto look so in charge before. Sure, she had seen him passionate before but this was different. This was new.

She nodded and raced back inside to prepare with what little time she had.

 _Now, where is Kakashi? I'm terrible at sensing unless its emotions…_

In a welcomed surprise, Naruto didn't have to find Kakashi, Kakashi found him. "I heard from Lady Tsunade that we have an important mission Naruto. We don't have time to waste."

Naruto didn't need to be told that so he headed towards the gate.

Sakura came rushing out a few minutes later, ready as she could be for something like this. In an ideal world, she would have had a shower but she didn't have that luxury.

Within a short space of time, the trio were off at a faster than normal pace.

Half an hour had gone by and Naruto was bursting at the seams, his pace had not slowed down one bit and neither had his anger. "Slow down Naruto, you're breaking formation." Sakura chastised which only server to make Naruto angrier.

 _She's a chunin and I'm a genin. Stay calm._

"This mission is very important to me, more than you will ever know." He said as he realised that he still hadn't told Sakura about his burden and her temper was one of the things that was holding him back. He didn't know how she would react. Telling her now on this mission would be the worst possible time to do so also. He wanted to be able to control if and when he told Sakura.

As they were racing through the trees, Naruto spotted someone below. "Temari!" The genin called out and dropped down from the trees above.

Turning around at hearing her name being called out, Temari "What's up?" The sinking feeling that she had been getting in her stomach all morning long only seemed to intensify.

"There's no time to waste, we'll explain on the way to Suna." Naruto called out as took it upon himself given that he was closest to Temari to deliver the bad news. Over the past few times that Temari had gotten to know the blonde since the fight with Gaara, she knew that he could be a goofball. When it came time to be serious though, he flipped a switch and went into business mode. This was business mode. This was not good.

Questions could be asked along the way but the now quartet of ninjas got on their way to the village, that much quicker.

"The Akatsuki has kidnapped Gaara and probably are planning on extracting the demon from him." There was no way for Naruto to sugar coat the situation. It was all kinds of fucked up. Temari could only gasp in shock and horror at what she had just heard. Her heart started beating rapidly and a million emotions started running through her body.

"No." She whispered. "There's no way Gaara could lose." Deep in the back of her mind though, Temari knew that Naruto, Kakashi and Sakura wouldn't be travelling this way, this fast if it wasn't true.

Steel resolve filtered across the face of Temari as she vowed to make those responsible pay for what they did to her little brother.

 **o-0-o**

The three days that it took to get to Suna went by agonizingly slow for both Naruto and Temari. Finally, for Naruto who was at the front of the group, he saw in the distance the sand village. This was one step closer to rescuing his friend.

The guards didn't wait at all. "Temari, is that you? Please come this way, we have been waiting for you." The jonin on gate guard duty due to the recent capture of their kazekage ushered the four ninjas into the village between the massive walls.

"Gaara was abducted and Kankuro chased after them only to be injured as well."

"What!? They got kankuro as well!?" Temari burst out, fearful of what the outcome would be.

Nodding, the woman continued on. "Yes, and he was caught by the enemy's poison and we have no way to neutralise it. At this rate, he has a day at most."

"Shit.." Temari whispered, wanting nothing more to be here when this happened so that she could have prevented it. She hated the feeling of not being able to control the outcome at all.

"I'll examine him." Sakura replied, having already gone in to what others would describe as doctor mode.

Ignoring all of the kafuffle between Naruto, the old woman and Kakashi-sensei, Sakura went to work in removing the poison. Within minutes, she had removed it and held it inside a sphere of water. "Heh, I don't think that there is a need to worry about his life anymore. I've directly removed most of the poison."

Temari couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief when she heard this. "whew" she whispered as she slid down the wall into a seating position. Her heart which was previously beating at an insane rate was only now starting to slow down.

Unware of this, Sakura continued. "Now I have to make an antidote for the rest of the poison in his body. We can't rest yet."

"You're a lot like that slug woman, to think that you could come in here like this and solve it so quickly..." The elderly woman mentioned with narrowed eyes.

With all of the focus on her, Sakura chuckled similar to her teammate. "Yes. It's because she is my sensei."

 **o-0-o**

Pakkun found the scent of Sasori of the Red Sands thanks to the bit of cloth that Kankuro had managed to find and was busy reporting it back to Kakashi. "So that's where they are." The elite jonin mentioned, more so to himself.

"It seems so, that's where Gaara sent was coming from also."

Naruto chose this moment to wake up. "Does this mean that we found where the Akatsuki are hiding?"

"Yep, get ready."

A few minutes later, Naruto, Sakura and Kakashi were out the front of the village along with Temari and a few other sand village ninjas. Just before they were about to leave, Baki showed up. "Temari, you and the other ninjas are to patrol the borders of the village."

This was not the right thing to say to the person who had almost lost one brother and the other's status being unknown. "Are you kidding me or what?"

Baki wasn't too happy with it either going by his facial expression. It was his student out there in the hands of the Akatsuki. "Orders. From above." There was a look of shock on the face of the female before it turned into a frown of resignation. Despite her emotions, she was not going to disobey a direct order. "If word gets out that the Kazekage is missing, then it may cause other villages to attack.

"Doesn't this make more sense to get Gaara back quickly? Just look at these leaf ninja! They came all the way out here and he's not even their kage." She impassionedly replied to her sensei, hoping for a way where she could join the group.

"I'm sorry." Was all that Baki could utter out.

"Well I'm going!" a voice from above called out to which they all looked up and spotted lady Chiyo! "After all, it's been a while since I've doted on my adorable grandchild." With no one wanting to argue against the venerable elder, the quartet of ninjas headed out.

Naruto, Chiyo, Sakura and Kakashi made quick ground to the land or rivers where Pakkun had made the connection. As they were making their way through the forest with Kakashi in the lead, the silver haired jonin noticed something. "Everybody stop!" Out there in front of them was none other than Itachi freaking Uchiha decked out in his Akatsuki robe.

"Itachi Uchiha… the child who wiped out his entire clan." Chiyo commented with Narrowed eyes. This was not going to be easy. Sakura gasped. She had an inkling who she was going up against but having it confirmed made it that much more real.

"Kakashi, Naruto, it's been a while."

"Geez, I'm not enough for you, you had to go after Gaara as well?" There was an edge to his voice that rarely came out.

"This one is on me. You will be providing cover." Kakashi called out to the team who nodded. After this happened, Kakashi charged forward towards Itachi and attempted to punch him in the face. The famed ex Konoha ninja blocked it and just to the left of Kakashi, a shadow clone was created and loomed for Naruto. Not one to rest on his laurels like he did in wave all those years ago, Naruto ran forward with a rasengan formed in his hand and slammed it into Itachi.

"There's no way that should have connected. It can't have been that easy." Naruto commented, observing the situation. He was on high alert. Turning around, Naruto noticed Chiyo and Sakura on the floor and they slowly morphed into copies of Itachi. _Genjutsu!_ Naruto quickly brought his hands up to his chest in the familiar hand sign and channelled enough chakra to make an odama rasengan.

"Kai!" he called out as he unleashed a massive amount of chakra, flooding his chakra pathways and his central nervous system; enough to break free from the illusion. As he came back to his senses, Naruto realised that they were back in their previous positions and nothing had happened yet.

"I think it's time we get to the main event." Kakashi loudly said.

 _Damn, I really need to work on genjutsu detection. He toyed with me._

Kakashi ran towards Itachi with the man rapidly going through hand signs. "Katon: Hosenka no jutsu (Fire Style: Phoenix sage fire jutsu) Itachi and shot multiple balls of fire in the direction of Kakashi. The ex ANBU ninja swiftly dodged in the incoming attack.

"He's not done yet!" Kakashi called out to the group behind him from the air. The trio were on edge.

"Katon: Goukakyu no jutsu (Fire Style: Grand Fireball jutsu)" Itachi called out and this time, there was a much large fireball. It was a giant sphere, almost 10m in circumference and it was coming straight for them.

At the last second, they all jumped in separate ways, dodging the incoming attack. "Chidori!" Kakashi called out as he ran for Itachi. Jumping back from where Kakashi attacked, Itachi was surprised to see Naruto waiting for him up in the air.

"Rasengan!" he called out as he attempted to slam the jutsu into the chest of the man that was trying to kill him. That was until the last second where Itachi moved out of the way. Naruto then turned into a cloud smoke revealing that it was a clone all along. Not to let him off the hook. The real Naruto had already gone through hand signs and had launched a bolt of lightning that was travelling at a fast pace towards the rogue ninja.

Catching sight of it at the last minute, Itachi was able to dodge without the attack hitting any of his body. His cloak was not so lucky. "Well now, he has learnt an interesting jutsu, hasn't he?" Itachi commented to no one in particular.

Coming out of the ground from a hole, Kakashi shot up and attempted to deliver an uppercut to Itachi. _That fireball, something's not right._ Before he could do anything about it though, Kakashi locked eyes with the rogue ninja and locked up.

"You are handling my genjutsu surprisingly well Kakashi but's expected when you are a shadow clone." At this point, the real Kakashi got up out of the hole in the ground.

"Now!" the real Kakashi called out as his clone held Itachi in place.

Naruto who had been standing to the side with one hand held high, started channelling a large amount of lighting chakra into his hand and it started spinning rapidly. In his hand was one of the failed attempts at mastering the elemental version of the rasengan. This was the result of combining the first step and giving it elemental chakra.

The bad thing was that he couldn't get it to work with stage two and three. The good thing? It could damn well fly.

"Destructo Disk!" Naruto called out as he threw the giant disk right at the clone of Kakashi and Itachi. It made a screeching buzzsaw noise and it glided through the air. It carved through hteh ground along the way and when it came up to Itachi, Naruto swear he saw a slight smile on Itachi's face.

Like butter, the edge of the jutsu sliced through both clone and human, separating torso from limbs. It didn't matter so much for the clone but for Itachi, there was a massive pool of blood. As they walked over to inspect the damage though, they couldn't believe what they saw below.

It wasn't Itachi Uchiha that was for sure.

"When we were fighting, I could feel that something was off." Kakashi said, trying to make heads and tails of what was looking at.

The blonde was in much the same boat. "I don't get it, what just happened?"

"That's Yura, and he is a jonin from our own village!" Chiyo commented gaining looks of shock from everyone in attendance, wondering what possible jutsu was capable of doing such a thing.

"We don't have time to waste. They were obviously stalling for time. We need to hurry if we want a chance at saving Gaara." Kakashi already had an idea in his head that they were extracting the demon but he didn't want to tell Naruto that in case the boy flew off the rails.

 **o-0-o**

Daybreak hit and all of the ninjas who had camped for the night were up and ready to take on what was going to surely be an eventful day.

Little time was wasted and as the four ninja sped off, with Naruto leading the way, Chiyo couldn't help but notice how determined Naruto was to save Gaara.

"What's his story. Why is he so eager to save someone wo is not from his own village?" Chiyo just didn't get it.

Kakashi internally debated, whether or not to tell her. She was perceptive and could pick up on things. _It's probably better to tell her in a controlled environment now, since Naruto may end up using the chakra._

Dropping back slightly and giving the older lady a look to follow, the duo got out of Sakura's hearing range. "Naruto is the jinchuuriki of the nine tailed fox." This made the eyes of Chiyo go wide open. "He doesn't really care about the village or the people but Naruto knows more than anyone in the hidden sand what the pain of being a jinchuuriki is and all of the loneliness it entails. He knows what it is like to go through that and his dream is to become the Hokage. When he heard that Gaara became the Kazekage, he was proud and jealous for his friend.

Not too long later and when they landed on top of the water, they were greeted with some familiar faces.

"Naruto." Neji said, surprised to see Naruto since he hadn't seen him in three years. With his byakugan that was active, he could tell that Naruto had gotten a lot stronger.

"Sakura, Kakashi." Tenten called out before turning her attention to the lady next to them. "Who's the lady?"

"Oh this is Lady Chiyo from the hidden Sand village."

What quickly followed was a discussion on how to remove the tags which kept up the barrier ninjutsu with Might Guy and his team volunteering to take on the task. The second it was done, Sakura punched the boulder blocking the entrance with a chakra powered fist, shattering in into hundreds of pieces.

The trio jumped inside shortly after and waited with baited breath for what was to come.

In front of them were the bodies of what were assumed to be Sasori and Deidara based off of the descriptions of Kankuro. What was more concerning though was lying at their feet.

Gaara's motionless body lace flat on his back, not moving at all.

It was obvious to see what had happened. They were too late. The bijuu had been extracted from its host.

Naruto saw red. His eyes quickly morphed from oceanic blue to crimson red with a slit running through the middle whilst the markings on his cheeks became more pronounced. "You, You bastards! I'll kill the both of you!" Naruto raged and shouted at the two ninja standing between him and his best friend.

"That's him alright. I think I'll take the jinchuuriki." Sakura could only gasp when she heard this as it all made sense now; why Naruto was willing to go to so many lengths for Gaara… Why Naruto had such a harsh upbringing.

Kakashi couldn't help but notice Deidara's hand moving and prepared for whatever it was to come. He didn't expect to see a mouth spit out clay which then turned into a bird. Even more so when chakra into it and it grew exponentially.

It then picked up Gaara with its beak and proceeded to swallow the late Kazekage. Deidara meanwhile jumped out of the way of Sasori's tail and flew on the bird out the entrance that Naruto and the others just came in, baiting Naruto to follow him.

Naruto did just that, much to the frustration of Kakashi who quickly turned to the others. "Naruto has gone off after Gaara. I'll go with him and handle Deidara. You two handle Sasori." Kakashi said before he turned back around and chased after Naruto.

"I can't afford to hold back here" Kakashi said more so to himself. With that said, he flipped his bandana to the side to reveal his regular sharingan. Said regular sharingan started to morph.

"That's..." Naruto trailed off as he stared at the eye.

Kakashi nodded. "Yes, that's a new form of sharingan." He said before focusing ahead, gesturing for Naruto to do the same.

Focusing intently, Kakashi stared at the limb of Deidara and allowed his sharingan to use the jutsu that was kamui. The space around the arm distorted and started spiralling in a clockwise direction.

Deidara felt a tug but was unaware of what was going on. He should have been paying more attention however as when Kakashi released a burst of chakra, he was left with only one arm. Blood spurted everywhere. "Gaah!" He screamed out in pain, definitely not expecting the outcome that had just happened.

Kakashi grimaced and grabbed his eye. That jutsu was definitely not one he could use willy nilly, given the pain it caused and the damage it did to the eye.

Not resting on his laurels, Naruto took the opportunity left by his former sensei to create a spinning disk which spun on the top of his palm. "Destructo disk!" Naruto called out as he flung the object right at the bird in front. It sliced the bird horizontally in half, separating from body.

Focusing on his main goal, Naruto caught the beak of the bird and set it down gently, securing his best friend. As this was happening, clones of Naruto went through hand seals, targeting Deidara who was still clutching at the stump which was once a fully functional arm.

"Raiton: Gian (Lightning Style: False Darkness) three of the Naruto clones each shot a bolt of lightning out of their hands

 _That dojutsu is on the same level as Itachi. The jinchuuriki is not that big of an issue but Kakashi... I've got to be careful around him._

Dodging at the last second, Deidara narrowly avoided the incoming attacks and it was only thanks to the kawarimi that the final bolt of lightning didn't him. Going by his gut though, Naruto created three more clones and had them each create their own buzz saw disk and hurled them in the direction of the former Iwa ninja.

Wisely choosing to dodge as he saw the incoming disks of death, the blonde couldn't help but look back in fascination at how much damage had been caused. Trees were sawed in half and rocks were cleanly sliced.

 _Well we got what we want, might as well make a retreat._ Deidara told himself as he felt incoming chakra signatures of foreign ninjas.

A similar thought process went through the mind of Naruto as whilst he wanted to rip the face off of the man who helped kill his best friend, there were more important things to worry about.

The Kyubi's chakra that was inside his body slowly receded to the point where his eyes went back to blue and his whisker marks went back to normal, right as Sakura, Chiyo and Team Gai came towards them.

 **o-0-o**

"For three years I trained to prevent anything happening to my friends and it was all for nothing!" Naruto shouted and electricity cackled around his fist as he punched the ground. Neji who was watching this was surprised at how much raw chakra Naruto was manipulating.

The damage was in the ground as Naruto created a large concave hole.

"Nooo Chiyo-san." Sakura called out which got Naruto's attention as he watched back with intent, wondering what was going on. Gaara was dead and nothing was going to change that as far as Naruto was concerned.

"What's going on!?" Naruto shouted. It wasn't anger lacing his words though, it was more hope; waiting for a miracle.

"She's bringing Gaara back to life." Sakura whispered and only she knew what Chiyo was really doing. Sure, she was bringing Gaara back to life, however she was doing it at the cost of her own.

"Is that really possible?" Naruto instantly replied, struggling to believe what he had just heard. Something like that wasn't possible right?

Sakura couldn't look Naruto in the eyes and tell him what was really going on. Thankfully, she didn't have to. "Damn, not enough chakra." Chiyo commented as she fell to forward, gasping for air.

The blonde haired genin was the first to act and appeared right by her side and offered his hands. "Here Chiyo-baasan. Can you use my chakra?" When she looked at Naruto, she saw everything that Kakashi had told her about how Naruto and Gaara lived very similar lives. She was proud that Gaara had someone like that. With past regret and having knowledge the future was going to be all right with people around like Naruto, Chiyo was reinvigorated and became fully committed to the jutsu.

Naruto started channelling the chakra into his hands and Chiyo restarted the jutsu.

"Both Suna and Konoha will look very different in the next few years with people like you in it Naruto-kun; far better than what it did back in my day." Chiyo said as she focused on the technique.

Chiyo fell down to the ground but this time, she didn't move at all. Everyone knew what had happened and she was quietly moved to the side.

As this was happening, Gaara slowly started to open his eyes and the first person who he saw was none other than Naruto Uzumaki. "Naruto..." Gaara said as he struggled to work out what was going on. Last thing he knew was that he was being taken to the Akatsuki base to have his demon removed from his body.

"You put us through a lot Gaara." Naruto said with a smile on his face that was so big he could barely contain in.

Kankuro chose this moment to chime in also. "For sure, you're a little brother I always have to worry about eh?"

Temari was having none of the smart mouth given Gaara's condition. "Gaara's still the kazekage so don't go getting complacent." The Suna princess commented as she stood right beside her brother. Concerned as ever, she placed her hand on Gaara's shoulder. "How are you feeling?"

His answer was to get up on his own two feet. The crowd went wild and many of the fangirls in attendance started talking all about Gaara, much to Temari's disgust.

 **o-0-o**

"I guess this is where we say goodbye." Naruto with sadness in his eyes but a grin on his face. He hated saying goodbye to Gaara given their shared situation but he knew that they had to. Gaara offered his hand out for a hand shake. "Nah fuck off with that shit. We're doing this the proper way."

For Tenten, Lee, Neji and Gai who didn't truly no the relationship dynamics between Naruto, they sucked in a huge breath of air. Naruto was disrespecting the freaking Kazekage!

Naruto pulled Gaara into him and he gave him a hug. Those behind Naruto could tell that Gaara was confused judging from his facial expression but appreciated the gesture from his friend. Only Naruto could get away with swearing at and then hugging a foreign Kage.

Once they parted, Naruto and the rest of the group headed back off to konoha. "By the way Gaara, I still reckon I could beat ya" Naruto said with a cheeky grin on his face.

"Sometimes, I wonder why I put up with him?" Gaara rhetorically asked to Temari and Kankuro. They did not reply as they were asking themselves the same question.

 **o-0-o**

The mission was finally over and Naruto could finally get some time to relax and recover. He had just finished a mountain made of Ichiraku bowls and was now onto the final thing for the day. He wanted to decorate his apartment.

It looked pretty bland as it only had a bed that was still not put together. If he wanted to invite friends over and host parties, he needed it to be more hospitable.

 _It needs some life_ Naruto thought to himself as he made his way down to the local florist. He was surprised at what he saw when he walked in. She had her back turned to him and he didn't mind one bit. It allowed him to survey the scenery for a bit. _She's hot._

She turned around slightly and Naruto was able to recognize who it was, even if she still hadn't seen him yet. "Wow, Ino, is that you?" Hearing her name being called out by a somewhat familiar voice, she turned around and had a look at the person. He had muscly arms, blonde hair, blue eyes and whisker marks. Outside of the muscly arms, there was only one person who fit that description.

"Naruto!?" She was shocked. She had heard through the grapevine that he was back in the village but she had yet to see him yet. "Well you've definitely changed a bit." The platinum blonde woman didn't exactly hide the way her eyes drifted over him.

"Yeah, just got back from my first mission back inside the village."

When he spoke like that, it was impossible for Ino to not tease him a little bit. "What, walking the dogs of the Inuzuka kennels was really that hard for a genin like yourself?"

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Oh come on Ino, I thought you were better than that, thought you had maybe matured from the academy?" There was a twinkle in the eyes of Ino.

"I felt your eyes on me the second you walked into the shop Naruto-kun. I know for a fact that you know I have matured." With a swish of her hair, she turned her attention back to what she was doing beforehand. This time though, there was an extra little sway in her steps.

Tanned cheeks quickly went red as a blush formed over the face of Naruto. _So much sass._ "I was actually looking at the potted plants near where you were standing. I've just got my own apartment and need to decorate it a bit."

Eyes lit up at the potential opportunity at being an interior designer. "Well I don't finish until late but I think I can fit time in to help you shop but you're going to have to buy me some clothes as payment."

Naruto chuckled. "I never said anything about getting you to come with me. Why would I want your opinion on that Ino?"

Offended, Ino turned around and levelled Naruto with a glare. "Because unlike you, I actually have a sense of fashion and if it was up to you, you would paint the whole entire place orange! If you ever want to get Sakura back to the place, you're going to need a nice looking one or she is going to leave within seconds." Ino said with a matter of fact grin on her face.

That was until Naruto's next statement shocked her and replaced the grin with a smirk. She lived for gossip. "Why would I want Sakura to come over? I once had a crush on her but that is long gone."

"Plus, I don't need help getting girls back to my place Ino. So what plants would you recommend for infrequent maintenance given the ninja life?" Naruto said and quickly tried to change topic.

"Oh really, there awfully big words coming from you tiger, the one who couldn't even get a kiss three years ago?" Ino didn't think too highly of Naruto's comment.

"At least I kissed from Sasuke which was more than you ever could haha. Look Ino, you've definitely changed and so have I. Can you help with these plants or should I go to a different store?" As much as he hated that moment, looking back on it was kind of funny.

It was clear to see for Ino that Naruto had grown up. He wasn't as brash he once was yet he was still a smart mouth and it was cute watching him try and match wits with the sass queen herself.

 _This will be fun teasing him, breaking him and having him putty in my hands._ There wasn't any malicious intent behind her thoughts, all it was to Ino was that it was just a game and she was going to have fun. And lots of it.

* * *

 **Author's Note: Hey there, hope you liked the chapter. I skipped a fair amount of dialogue from the manga / anime due to fact that if you're reading this story, you have probably read the suna arc 1000 times and you would probably skip over it anyway. I wanted to show Naruto off partially without revealing his full skillset which will happen at a later point in the story.**

 **If you have any constructive criticsm, any ideas for jutsus that Naruto could use and or potential plotlines that you like the idea of but don't want to write yourself, please let me know and I will see if it works for my plan for this story.**


	7. And a voice keeps saying

Naruto finished breakfast and hopped in the shower. He came back into his room and surveyed it. It was finally starting to look like a home. His bedroom was almost complete, he had signs of life in the form of plants and now all he needed was to get some furniture so that he could invite guests over here.

After getting changed into his ninja outfit, Naruto headed to the ninja halls. He wanted to get a head start on missions and get a chance to move up in rank as soon as possible. "Neji, it's good to see you again, are you about to get another mission you're a jonin and all?"

"Yes, and I am looking for members for my team. Would you like to join?" Neji questioned to which Naruto jumped at the chance.

"Definitely! Oh and when you see how awesome I am, do ya think you can put in a word for me to get a field promotion to chunin? I'm still only a genin dattebayo!" Naruto sheepishly rubbed the back of his head as he said this.

The jonin couldn't help but smirk. "If you're lucky. We need to still find three more people for this mission with ideally one of them being a medic. I'll go and get Tenten, see if you can find a medical ninja." Naruto wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth so he got to work.

The two departed their own separate ways via the shunshin no jutsu, with there being a trail of lightning left behind where Naruto once stood.

After the performance of the sand mission in the back of his mind, when Neji asked for a medical ninja, the first person that came to mind was Sakura, so he went off to go find her.

Knocking on her door, he found her wearing her pyjamas still. _She's still cute._ She was wearing a long sleeve, white cotton stop and flannel pyjama bottoms. "Hey Sakura-chan, I'm about to go on a mission and we need a medical shinobi. Do you want to come?"

Shocked at hearing this, Sakura's eyes widened as she realised she hadn't yet told Naruto what she had learnt from Sasori before she killed him. "We can't go on that mission Naruto. We have another one to go on. Sasori before he died, he gave us a lead to go and see Sasuke-kun!" hope shone in her eyes as she was hopefully going to get her team back.

Naruto felt guilty that he had already asked to see if he could be on his own team. That didn't change his opinion on the situation though. He had already given his word to Neji about this mission. "And?" All it took was one word to silence Sakura into shock? "Life doesn't revolve around a former teammate who chose to abandon us three years ago Sakura-chan."

"What!? Don't you want to reunite team 7? How could you say such a thing?" anger was coming to the surface.

"To be completely honest with you Sakura-chan, reuniting Team 7 doesn't really bother me one bit. I'm not going to sacrifice my friendships with those who care about me and jeopardize them over someone who created a gaping hole through my chest. There are people here in the village that deserve my time and energy rather than Sasuke."

"But, but you promised!" Sakura grasped at straws. She simply expected Naruto to want to come on this mission and didn't think she would even need to ask. This was ruining all of her plans.

"Really, we're going to bring that up again?" Naruto sighed and Sakura looked triumphant

"Come on Naruto, It's Sasuke-kun, he's our team and he needs to come home." Unaware that Naruto's opinion of her was getting reduced by the second.

 _It's easy to see I never had a chance with her. She's definitely got tunnel vision for him._

"If we want to go down that path, then I do remember the promise. However, I never promised when I would bring him back. At this point in my life, I've got far higher priorities than bringing Sasuke back who probably won't even want to come back willingly. It's clear you've got this other mission to go on so I'll leave you be. I guess I'll need to find someone else." Naruto commented and before the fist slammed on his face, he vanished in a plume of smoke. A trailing spark of electricity hit Sakura.

 _Damn you Naruto!_

Remembering who he spoke to the night before, Naruto knew of someone else he could visit to help out on this mission.

 **o-0-o**

"Hey so what's the mission Neji?" Ino questioned. She was the last of the four ninjas to arrive at the gate.

"It's a four-week long mission. A-ranked. We are escorting a civilian sports team from the capital to the world cup final. Whilst we are there, we are to ensure the civilian athletes are safe and no one poisons there food. There will be Samurai there as well as the Fire Daimyo will also be going so you must be on your best behaviour." When Neji said this, he looked directly at Naruto who grumbled. Tenten giggled.

"Why'd ya have to look at me when you say that Neji?" Naruto questioned.

"Do you really want me to answer that?" Neji replied. A smirk etched onto his face.

Naruto wisely chose not to respond to that. Whilst he had gained a massive amount of strength on his training trip, his personality was still much the same.

Shino who was in attendance, merely stood to the side but internally, he was chuckling.

"The mission starts in the fire capital. The tournament is in the land of iron. We will meet the team in the capital and then travel to Iron country." Neji commanded to which the rest of the team nodded and headed out over the country side.

With that said, the five ninjas headed out of the village, ready for the mission to start. "So how was your time away from the village Naruto?" The brunette didn't get much time to get to know Naruto beforehand so she took this chance. She wanted to get to know more about the person that made Neji change. The fact that he was also really close Tsunade-sama didn't hurt either.

Naruto grinned from ear to ear. "It was great fun, I got so much stronger, learnt so much and met so many people! What about you, how was the village when I was gone."

"It's been so great with Tsunade-sama around. She's such a role model and hope for all us kunoichi to be as strong as shinobi."

"Hmm, didn't know the alcoholic still had that kind of sway." He couldn't help but respond with a bit of cheek.

"What are you suggesting there Naruto-san? That you're insulting our supreme boss and calling the best female kunoichi ever an alcoholic." Tenten said in a sickly sweet tone of voice.

Mirth filled the eyes of Ino and she saw an opportunity to strike "Yeah Naruto, if this is how you talk about women, then I highly doubt your comment yesterday of you not needing help getting women back to your place. It's probably more likely you need help getting a lay in a brothel."

Everyone in the group was shocked that Ino said this. Naruto, was annoyed on top of that. "Hey I didn't need any help when I got a Kumo chick in the land of hot water! At least I have actual friends like Neji and Shino over here." Neji was irritated but it wasn't the comment about being Naruto's friend, it was the mention of Kumo. He still had a distaste for the village.

"I appreciate that you consider me your friend Naruto-san." Shino stoically replied.

"So does anyone know about these dumb sport things? I mean aren't they civilians playing, wouldn't ninjas be must faster and able to play the game at a higher level?" Ino commented. It was clear to see that she had absolutely no interest whatsoever in this at all.

Offended, a rebuttal quickly came back. "This is football Ino! It's not about raw physical ability, it's about technique and skill which takes years to master, ninja or civilian." Tenten hotly countered.

"So you're interested in this stuff Tenten? All I know about it is that people love to gamble on it and they had a tournament on a while ago. I made a lot of money that day. Muahahahaha" Naruto laughed as his eyes flashed into dollar signs.

So did Ino. In fact, she knew a couple of dresses that she would look great in. "Oh Naruto, have I ever told you how much you've grown over the past three years and how tall you are?"

"Nope and I almost forgot they made that song about you about how you love digging for gold and not messing around with broke ass people." Naruto chimed back to which Neji smirked and Ino grumbled.

It was going to be a long trip to the capital.

"Man, the weather here is nice and hot!" Atsui grinned as he spoke to the rest of the group.

"Well I hope you're ready then as it is going to get significantly colder after we make our way into Iron Country." Darui replied, the leader of the team. A bored expression settled over his face.

"Going on a mission with my little brother is so not cool." Samui, the other jonin in the team sighed. There was a solid almost ten year age gap between herself and Atsui. It felt like babysitting.

"What's not cool is that Karui could fall in love with a foreign ninja, from Konoha and have a child with him and then Konoha demanding the child back or they will start a war."

"Shut up you idiot! There's no way I am falling in love on a mission." Whilst Karui brained her teammate, she couldn't help but remember a particular time she shared with a Konoha shinobi. She enjoyed it very much.

 **o-0-o**

"They better win this whole tournament. Outside the strength of our shinobi, there is nothing that Earth Country take more pride in than sport." Kurotsuchi proudly proclaimed. She also happened to be a massive follower of the sport.

"Come on Kurotsuchi-chan, have some faith. I am sure they will do well." Akatsuchi replied back, with a grin on his face.

Two other Iwa ninjas didn't really care about football, they just wanted to complete the mission.

 **o-0-o**

"Anything less than 1st place will be a disgrace to the name of the land of water. We will win." Ao proudly stated, full of confidence in his country's ability to defeat the mainland in football.

"What makes you so confident in that Ao-sama?" Chojuro questioned. If he was honest, he didn't know or care too much about this civilian sport called football.

"Back in my day, we were the best where men were tough and decisive. These pansies today don't know the real meaning of sport!" Chojuro who was situated behind his team leader rolled his eyes. Ao always seemed to go on rants about how good the old days used to be so much better than now.

 **o-0-o**

"We mustn't fail. This is our highest profile mission since we became a village. Don't use the power Orochimaru-sama gave us unless you make sure that no one knows that you have used it." The Sound jonin said to the rest of the group with him. He too clutched at his neck,

"Are we going to be sabotaging any of the competitor's?" The second in command, another jonin replied.

"Are you stupid? Of course, we will be."

 **o-0-o**

Kakazu grinned underneath his mask. He was going to be able to make a lot of money at this tournament. It was a shame that he was going to have to babysit Hidan though. That religious nutjob was serious work.

 **o-0-o**

"So are any of you guys going to be betting on the world cup?" Naruto questioned as the group were still on their way to the the fire capital to meet up with the daimyo and his entourage that they were tasked with protecting.

"No. Why do you ask? Well gambling is frowned upon and is one of the vices shinobi should stay away from." Even if Naruto wasn't able to see who had said that, he could easily guess who it was. It was Shino.

"It is unbecoming of the Hyuga clan to partake in gambling." That was what Neji said. What Naruto heard was completely different. _I would like to but I don't have the balls to do it._

Tenten had to pause for a moment before she shrugged her shoulders. "Ehh why not, I'll give it a crack but ill only bet like $20 or so." In the back of her mind, Tsunade, the legendary ninja did it so why shouldn't she give it a go? Plus, there was the lure of getting lucky and winning big.

"Yeah why not, I've got a new dress on my mind that Ino-chan's booty would look great in!" Dollar signs were in her eyes as she pictured all of her winnings at her feet whilst wearing the new dress.

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Really, you refer to yourself in third person Ino? Don't you think that's a bit conceited?"

The platinum blonde stuck her tongue out at Naruto. "I'm surprised you even know how to use such a big word like conceited in a sentence without screwing it up. Good on you for finally passing academy level English."

"Oi princess, back off. I'm not going to give you any tips on who to bet on." Naruto said with a bit of a growl. The fact that he was the deadlast of his year group at the academy was still a sore point.

"Pfft! Hahaha!" It was safe to say that Ino didn't think that highly of Naruto's gambling skills.

Tenten though, she was curious. Somehow, someway, it just seemed liked things worked out for Naruto. She didn't know him too well but… _Ahh what the heck, I'll give him some money and see how it goes._

A vulpine grin crossed the face of Naruto which none of his teammates could see. In the past, Jiraiya only let him gamble with his sensei's money since he had enough to spare. This time round. He was going to put a fair bit of his savings in and see what happened. Generally, it all seemed to work out well for the Konoha genin.

 **o-0-o**

Neji got down into a bow, just like the rest of his team. "Toriyama-sama, it is an honour to meet you. My name is Neji Hyuga and this is my team." This was certainly the highlight of his career as a jonin, getting to meet arguably, the most powerful man in the world.

"Likewise Hyuga-san. Oh is that Naruto-chan? You've grown since I last saw you." The Feudal Lord proclaimed as his eyes laid on a familiar set of blonde hair.

Naruto took this as his cue to stand up.

As all of this was going on, the entire team were in a state of shock. _Of course Naruto somehow knows the Fire Daimyo. I swear he knows everyone powerful in our hierarchy_ _._ Tenten told herself as she watched on.

Neji was also twitching as this would have been useful information to know. Shino was also in shock but due to the nature of his outfit, he hid it well.

"Hey Akira boss-man, how's it going?" Naruto walked over and shook his hand.

The man smiled and offered out his hand which Naruto shook "I feel much safer knowing that you're on this mission Naruto-chan. Tell Jiraiya to visit sometime soon okay?"

"Will do." Naruto turned around and realised that all of his friends were still bowing and in there crouched positions. "Oh you guys can get up. Boss man over here is a cool guy!"

Neji was the first to gain his wits. "How do you know Daimyo-sama?" His eyes were imploring Naruto to give him the truth first time.

Naruto shrugged his shoulders. "Met him on my training trip with Pervy Sage. He and the daimyo are friends, cool huh?" The genin replied as he held his hand to the back of his head and let out a nervous chuckle.

Eyes narrowed ever so slightly. "Please inform me beforehand if you have information that is quite critical before we need to use it."

"Sorry 'bout that Neji, dattebayo."

Before Neji could say anymore, the Daimyo spoke up, taking his attention elsewhere. The matter was settled. For now. What Neji was unaware of was what was going throug the head of the only genin going on this mission.

 _This is finally the big stage. With an event like this, I imagine that every country will have their shinobi out on display. Finally, I'm going on missions with the big boys. I'm one step closer to chunin and then jonin and finally Hokage!_

 **o-0-o**

On one hand, Samui felt bad for her teammate, Omoi. They were on a boat travelling from Lightning country to Iron Country and he was not taking sea sickness well. On the other hand, it finally gave her a moment where she didn't have to listen to his crackpot theories where the world was going to end by a giant plant.

Noticing that her brother was trying and noticeably failing when it came to talking to Karui, the Ice Queen of Kumo decided to see if she could find Darui. She enjoyed the fact that there was another sane person on this mission. It was a rare occurrence.

 **o-0-o**

The weather got progressively colder for the ninjas travelling north from the capital to the Land of Iron.

Ino had switched from her usual summery outfit to a pair of curve hugging purple yoga pants combined with a matching purple sports bra which showed off quite a generous amount of cleavage. In addition to this, she was wearing a form fitting white fleece jacket where she zipped it down to show off her chest. The platinum blonde had also pulled her hair into a tight pony tail without a bang framing her face. This mission she had to have extreme focus and couldn't have anything blocking her vision such as hair.

Shino's outfit stayed the same.

Neji wore the same outfit although underneath it, he wore a full set of compression tights from ankle to wrist. They were white, going with the general theme of his outfit.

Much like her regular teammate, Tenten's outfit didn't really change much as she normally wore all-purpose weather clothing. She settled for some black pants which were a bit thicker than the normal red ones crimson garment she usually wore.

Naruto for his part was lucky. Due to the kyubi, his body naturally regulated heat and he didn't have to worry about temperature. His body was practically a furnace, even in winter.

This was much to the displeasure of Ino. "How are you not cold!?" She was not pleased that she had to change her outfit for this mission.

Naruto laughed. It was only Neji that noticed it was a slightly uncomfortable laugh and he was certain he knew why. After the defeat in the chunin exams, Neji was determined to find out what allowed Naruto to reopen his chakra points. His research came to the only logical explanation being that he was a jinchuuriki.

It made so much sense why Naruto hated the idea of the caged bird during the chunin exams. His respect for Naruto grew tremendously after learning the hardships he had gone through, especially after getting closer to Hinata in the these past few years.

Unless there was something that came up on this mission, Neji was definitely going to be recommending Naruto for chunin. More than that though, he wanted to fight Naruto once more. Now that he knew about the jinchuuriki status, he had a few strategies he was interested in trying out.

"Because I'm awesome, you wouldn't understand."

Ino was about to fire back with her retort but it was Neji who spoke up in a commanding voice. "Don't speak Ino. Leave it be." Naruto shot the team leader a look of relief.

 **o-0-o**

The team had finally made it to Iron country. Due to civilians' they had to travel at a much slower rate. Naruto was getting itchy and thankfully, Neji and Shino were still with the group which allowed Naruto and the two girls the chance to go and place their bets.

"So does anyone know about this stuff?"

Tenten was the first to speak "Umm not really but surely we should put a bet on our own country, right? To be patriotic and stuff?" It was clear to see to the people in the room that the trio that had just walked in had no idea what they were talking about. They grinned and saw all the money that they were going to win.

Ino was the first to make her bet. After having a look at the teams, She placed $50 on Fire Country. Admittedly, it wasn't the most thought out decision. The blonde just saw that one of the players on the team had the nickname HurriKane. She didn't care too much since it was money that she was willing to lose.

Naruto on the other hand, he was going a bit more in depth. "I'll put $200 on the short guy to score 2 goals but his team, the blue and white's to lose. Oh and umm... I'll put $100 for the water country, sand country and Iron country teams to all come first in their groups. Oh, that guy has the name hazard. He must be dangerous, I bet his team is gonna win the whole thing; ill put $500 on them. Ahh and can I also put $500 on Fire country going out in the group stages? Actually scratch that, they do that all the time." It was easy to tell that Naruto had no idea what was going on, he was just trusting his gut.

It started the myriad of bets that Naruto put on totalling just over $1500. He was keen to see how much he could win. He trusted his gut instinct and it had never let him down.

His gut instinct also wasn't limited to just gambling. Somehow Naruto could sense negative emotions, that was the best he could describe it even though he had no official answer. That sense was going into overdrive.

The second the bet was placed, Naruto straightened his posture and a serious look on his face. In a tone of voice that neither Ino or Tenten had heard, Naruto spoke up. "Girls, we need to leave now. " It wasn't angry, it wasn't happy but it was firm, clear and to the point now. It left no room for argument.

Stunned to see Naruto acting like this, they followed but not before sharing a look at one another to silently agree to ask questions. The three left the room in seconds via the shunshin and hid next to Naruto in the alleyway.

Naruto knew that this was going to be a big mission. He was prepared for that. What he wasn't exactly prepared for, was the scale of just how big it was going to be. "For fuck's sake." Naruto whispered as he did his best to commit the image of what he was seeing to memory. This mission just got a whole lot more fucked up.

"What's going on Naruto?" Ino whispered, she was very much concerned. She had never seen Naruto act like this before. Sure, she had seen him get serious but during those times, you could see his usual personality shine through or see what emotions he was feeling. This Naruto was showing none of that and she didn't know what it meant.

"Trust me when I say that I will tell you two later. For now, supress your chakra to the best of your ability." As Naruto said this, he did the exact same. One of the first lessons that his sensei had drilled into him was the ability to hide and how important it was for him specifically. If for whatever reason that he and Jiraiya were separated, he needed to know how to hide. Massive chakra reserves were a serious hindrance but not impossible to hide from sensors.

When focused, Naruto could get to the point where a sensor could only see that he had high genin reserves, nothing in an area populated by far stronger people.

The trio quickly made their way back to Neji. "Oi Naruto, can you finally explain what is going on!? You're starting to scare me."

Neji was put on high alert when he heard this. He had only been a jonin for the past few months and he was still getting used to the position.

"Explain." It was not a request.

Once the room was filled with all of the ninjas, Naruto started speaking. "Look, nothing may come of this, however, our mission just potentially got a whole lot tougher."

Frustrated as Naruto had caused her to panic and she had not yet been told why, Tenten wanted answers. "Just tell us why, stop speaking in riddles."

Annoyance was felt by Naruto but he didn't let it filter across his face. "Two shinobi are here. They are from the Akatsuki."

"The mercenary group who take missions that even the villages won't take? Little is known about them. I can tell that you are not telling us something though." Shino, always level headed replied.

The genin nodded. "That's only the surface level. What the Akatsuki really is, is a group of 9 S-ranked missing ninjas. They are using the guise of doing missions to go through the world to find all of the tailed beasts, and use them for an as of yet, undiscovered goal."

Naruto keenly observed his teammates, waiting to see their reactions. Over the past few minutes, Naruto had come to terms with the fact that he was going to have to tell the team just what they were getting themselves into, for their safety.

"How does that affect our mission though?" Tenten questioned. She didn't really see the larger picture that Naruto was obviously hinting at.

"I see Naruto. And how does one obtain a tailed beast if you don't mind me asking?" Shino questioned. The blonde got the impression that the Aburame knew. _Trust Shino to figure it out, he was always one of the smart ones._ He tried to read the look on his teammate's face but couldn't quite do it due to the clothing. The fact that he couldn't sense any negative emotions though gave Naruto hope.

"They extract it from it's current host, murdering it in the process." Naruto didn't have to say any more for Shino and Neji to realise the gravity of what this mission just became.

Neji sucked in a deep breath. Tenten and Ino both looked at each other and became even more worried. The Hyuga prodigy generally had immaculate control over his facial expressions. To see him so rattled was not what one would call normal.

"You have my word Naruto that as Team Leader, we will do everything in our power to prevent that from happening." Neji firmly looked into the eyes of Naruto with upmost confidence.

"Thanks Neji, it means a lot to me, I knew that I would be able to count on you."

"Add myself to that too Naruto-san. Why do you ask? Because I too know what it is like to have a social marking placed on me at birth without any say and having it control my life to a degree." As Shino said this, Naruto couldn't help but realise a newfound respect for the man. It made him feel a bit guilty that he didn't try as hard as what he could have to make friends with the Aburame in the academy. _Shino went through similar things as me!_

"Can you three stop speaking in fucking riddles and just tell us what the fuck is going on?" Ino didn't normally swear but given the situation, her panic steadily rose and all of this talking was making it worse, not better. Concern laced her face as she cared a lot about her friends and she didn't want anything to happen to them.

Both Neji and Shino gave Naruto a look. _It's up to you;_ Was how Naruto interpreted it. With a sigh, Naruto sat up straight and prepared to reveal one of the big secrets surrounding his life. "Tell me, what do you two girls know about the Kyubi?"

Ino was the first to respond with an answer the not too dissimilar to what the textbooks in the academy stated. "It is a monster which the Fourth Hokage killed, why?" Normally she would banter a bit and playfully tease but she psychologist in training could tell that now was definitely not the right time for it.

"That's not entirely true. History is always written by the victor." Naruto paused to let that sink in before continuing. "The tailed beasts aren't monsters. Instead they are giant chakra constructs which since they are large amounts of chakra, they can't be killed. If you manage to kill" at this point Naruto said it with air quotations. "In a few years, the chakra will regather and then form back into the tailed beast."

"So the Yondaime didn't manage to kill the beast but he did defeat it though right?" Tenten questioned. The thought of the Kyubi possibly being out there terrified her to no end. She had heard all of the stories about how much damage it was capable of causing.

"True. He did defeat it." Naruto braced himself for what he was about to say next. He hoped he would keep his friends after it. "Since you are unable to kill a tailed beast, the only thing you can do to prevent it from attacking again when it recovers is to seal it into something. Due to the nature of how powerful the Kyubi is, it's unable to be hosted in something like a tea kettle which the one tail, was formerly housed in.

Instead, it had to be housed in a human; more specifically, it had to be housed in a newborn baby due to the chakra coils yet to be fully formed which would allow the chakra coils to adapt to the influx of the tailed beast's chakra.

I was one of the only babies born the night of the attack and I was chosen to be the host of the Kyubi." Naruto finally finished and a considerable weight was lifted off of his shoulders. It was the first time that he had ever told someone. Sure, there were people his own age who knew, such as Gaara, but it was his first time willingly volunteering the information.

What Naruto did not expect was a body to come crashing towards him. he expected some pity or worst case anger, but he didn't expect this, not that he was exactly complaining. Pulling away from the hug, Ino looked Naruto in the eyes.

"I'm so sorry that you had to go through that Naruto. You didn't have a say in it. I remember what it was like for you in the academy and I can't imagine how painful it must have been.

It was easy to say that Naruto did not like being the centre of attention for this. "Thanks Ino. It was tough but it shaped me into who I am today dattebayo" He replied with a blush on his face.

Tenten out of the two girls was a bit more pragmatic. "So it's like a kunai or shuriken in a scroll right."

Naruto was incredibly thankful for the brunette taking some of the pressure off of him. "Kind of. I can tap into the power of the Kyubi if needed but the more power I use, the more of the Kyubi's influence I feel. These days, I try and live my life without thinking about it and only use the Kyubi's power as a last resort."

Tenten breathed a sigh of relief. In the back of her mind there was the fear of the Kyubi being able to take over Naruto.

Neji grumbled. "He used it in our fight to reopen his tenketsu points which allowed him to beat me."

One action Naruto did not expect when telling this part of his life to his friends, was to roll on the floor laughing. He was doing that though. Eventually he sobered up although he still had a cheeky grin on his face. "Still beat you though."

"I'd like to see you try now without the help of the Kyubi, Naruto." As much as there was a hint of truth in what Neji said, it was all said in good faith with it being solely banter.

"And I'd still beat you again. Wouldn't even need the furball's help." It was clear to see that Naruto had definitely not lost his confidence.

The Hyuga prodigy raised an eyebrow. "Oh? And what makes you so sure about that? Do tell."

"Well already beat Kakashi for starters."

And so the conversation about Naruto being the Kyubi host and how the Akatsuki was after him devolved into a dick measuring contest between Naruto and Neji.

Ino looked on, relieved.

The day before going on this mission, she caught up with sakura who told her the entire story about Gaara which explained all why he was a psychopath as a kid. It made her realise just how resilient the genin in front of her was.

 _There's a lot more to Naruto than I know! And I want to find out more._

* * *

 **Author's notes: I few people have been asking me to give Naruto, this that and every ability under the sun whilst using shadow clones to get there. I don't see the point in having Naruto have all of these skillsets and be overpowered. He is already capable of being strong in the manga. Him have having everything else on top of that, just seems overkill. That being said, Naruto has still yet to reveal his full power.**

 **In addition to this, they are asking for me to change his personality far too quickly and far too much into what is essentially an OC with the name Naruto. His character will change however, I don't want to write about an OC, I want to write about Naruto going through character development and coming out a different person.**

 **Also in this, it is easier to write in $ rather than ryo. Sorry for any inconveniences this causes.**


	8. This is where I'm meant to be

Her ass was up in the air, her legs were spread, head was getting repeatedly pounded into a pillow and she was biting on the edge of said pillow. "Ohh! Yes, Naruto! Keep it going, harder, harder, harder!" Karui moaned as she took cock inside of her. Doggy style was one of her favourite positions and right now was a clear reason to why.

"Fuck Karui-chan, you're pussy is so fucking tight. I'm about to cum." Somehow, someway, Karui had noticed the sex was even better than last time. She'd already cum 3 times in the space of 20 minutes. It was supposed to be a quickie but that didn't quite go to plan.

"Ahhh." Naruto groaned as he had a powerful orgasm which shot all of his semen into the condom.

The two took a few moments to bask in the afterglow of sex before they both went to the bathroom to rearrange themselves and make them look presentable. Naruto, not so gracefully, deposited the condom into the bin whilst two of his clones were walking around the room and opening all the windows despite the fact that it was freezing cold outside. The quicker the smell or more so any sign that Naruto had had a foreign kunoichi in his room was ideal for the genin.

He did not want have to deal with Neji if the Hyuga prodigy found out what transpired.

"See ya next time stud." Karui said before giving Naruto a quick peck on the cheek before vanishing in a cloud of smoke.

With a sigh of relief, the thrill of sex still high in his mind, Naruto remembered how he and the fiery redhead bombshell found themselves in a familiar position. The blonde haired teenager picked up his pie which was now room temperature at best and started eating. He would have preferred it warm but wasn't one to complain.

 _ **Flash back**_

 _With the mission scheduled for a month, it was a bit unrealistic to have all five members working 24/7. Eventually, over time, their performaces would drop which was completely unacceptable._

 _They were allowed downtime which they all planned on using. Naruto however had to be extra careful due to the Akatsuki._

 _Going down to just outside the hotel he was staying in, Naruto found a small shop selling takeaway food. On one hand, it wasn't ramen. On the other, it was a hell of a lot better than ration bars._

 _As he surveyed the shop to see what he wanted, Naruto decided on a sausage roll and a chocolate milk drink. After spending so much time with Jiraiya eating meat and rice, he wanted to have something he enjoyed._

" _Naruto, is that you?" he heard someone call out and he immediately turned around in case it was a foreign ninja. He was on high alert ever since seeing the Akatsuki and he didn't want to take any chances_

 _Upon turning around, he noticed a familiar and rather attractive face. Red hair was held up in a bandana as it fell down to frame amber eyes and chocolate skin. Unlike last time, she was in her Kumo uniform. Naruto assumed she was in the same mission he was._

 _She looked just as hot as last time as images of her body beneath his filter into his brain thanks to his memory._

" _I see you still like having the taste of chocolate on your lips." Naruto liked to consider himself witty and someone who could bullshit easily. Even he was lost for words when he heard Karui say that._

 _It took him a little bit for his brain to go back to working but eventually he replied. "Yeah, I guess you could say after the first time I've tried it, I've always wanted more." It appeared that that was the answer that karui exactly wanted to hear. A smirk formed on her face shortly after._

" _Your place this time." It wasn't a request. It was a demand._

 _ **End flash back**_

Less than minute had transpired from the shop to the duo making it back Naruto's apartment. Another minute followed and Karui felt the familiar feeling of Naruto's penis inside of her.

Finishing off the drink of chocolate milk, Naruto heard a knocking on the door, it was Ino who had just returned from her shift. "Geez Naruto, its freezing in here. Close the damn windows."

"It's not that bad. I don't feel the cold that much," Naruto defended, hoping to buy more time for fresh air to circulate.

Ino wasn't one to take no for an answer. "Well not all of us are as fortunate as you, whiskers." The platinum blonde replied as she walked past Naruto and over to the windows and closed them. She then walked over to the heater and turned it on to a toasty 26 degrees and proceeded to take off her snow white jacket, leaving her in a matching two piece set of yoga pants and a sports bra.

If it wasn't for the fact that he had just had sex literally minutes ago, Naruto knew he would be sporting a tent in his pants at the sight in front of him. Ino had definitely grown up over the past few years.

Ino still felt guilt about how she treated Naruto in the academy. It was due to a combination of things. Sakura had told her all about how Gaara turned into a psychopath combined with how she remembered Naruto who, looking back on it now, was just doing his best to try and make friends. He didn't have anyone to guide him back then and let him know that he was trying too hard and to calm down a bit.

After hearing Naruto's story, she vowed to herself to get to know Naruto better and be able to truly call him her friend.

"I just wanted to say sorry again for how I treated you in the academy Naruto." Ino mentioned as she sat down in the chair.

Naruto who was on the other side of the room, shifted uncomfortably. "It's all good Ino, you didn't know and frankly I wouldn't have wanted anyone to treat me differently if they knew. The last thing I want is pity." Naruto commented, hinting that he didn't want Ino to pity him now.

She got the hint loud and clear. "I don't want to come across as pitying you Naruto. I want to say I'm impressed!" She blurted out, shocked at her own actions. "It's impressive that you were able to handle all of that as a kid and still manage to stay so positive. I can't imagine many people being in your situation coming out as happy as you did."

Naruto forced a chuckle. "You do realise that it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows right? There were times I hated it all, wanting everyone who ever hurt me or called me painful names to just vanish right?"

 _Has he always been like this? Did we ever give him a chance to show this side?_ "A lot more frequently than she would expect, Ino was seeing a more mature side to Naruto that if she had to be honest, didn't expect from him. A whole new dimension was added to his personality and it made her curious. As a psychologist in training, Naruto's upbringing intrigued her.

"True" Ino acknowledged. "However you didn't, you became someone so positive and if someone took the time to actually look at what you have overcome, there'd be a novel worthy of being written."

Naruto truly blushed at the comment. He had occasionally received compliments on his looks which he enjoyed just like he enjoyed the comments about his sexual performance. They paled in comparison compared to the one that he just heard then. Blood rushed to the genin's face and he blushed up a storm.

"Why are you suddenly taking so much interest in me? You never cared before." Naruto questioned, on the defensive. This was uncharted territory for Naruto and he didn't know what to do.

"Because you're an interesting person Naruto and I care a lot about my friends." Hearing the way, the blonde said so emphatically that they were friends made Naruto's heart beat significantly faster.

It was very rare for Naruto to hear someone calling him their friend. Sasuke when he was around would never say it in a million years and Sakura was too concerned about her social status back when they were a team to tell people. Kiba, Choji and Shikamaru he knew considered him their friend through actions or at least, he hoped that he did.

On those darker days however, where he questioned everything, it would have been great to have been verbally told that he was their friend.

Ino, who he hadn't spent a lot of time with said it with such confidence that he fully believed her statement to which he was very thankful for.

It wasn't just Ino who was changing her mind about Naruto. Naruto's opinion of Ino grew from one conversation. Admittedly, in the past, he thought of her as nothing more than a Sasuke fan girl.

 _Whilst she may still fangirl over Sasuke, there's more to her than that now. She's grown up._

"Thanks Ino-chan, you don't know how much that means to me. So how was your time during my time away? Get up to much fun?"

Ino smiled almost from ear to ear, happy to see Naruto perk up again. "It was great, I learnt medical ninjutsu from Shizune and even a bit from Tsunade-sama. I learnt a lot of clan jutsus and how to interrogate thanks to daddy and I became a chunin 1.5 years ago." The teenager replied, happy to talk about her accomplishments.

Grateful that the attention was now no longer on him, Naruto replied. "That sounds cool, so you seem strong in a lot of areas, where do you find you spend most of your time? The flower shop, the hospital or interrogating people?"

Beaming at the compliment to her skills, Ino tucked a stray loose strand of hair behind her ears. She was used to compliments about her body and they were said so much by horny men, some almost old enough to be her grandfather. Compliments that praised her abilities as a ninja were far less frequent. She always felt inadequate out in the field compared to the two big hitters in the team Shikamaru and Choji.

"Well recently. Daddy has allowed me to work on higher profile cases for interrogation which is cool but I kind of miss going on missions. I haven't been able to go on many recently due to being needed elsewhere. I'm grateful that you came to me with this mission."

"Awesome! I wouldn't know the first thing to do when it comes to interrogation outside of hurting someone if they didn't give the answers I wanted haha." Naruto sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. "That's cool though, it's a niche skill that not many people have. Yeah… I hear ya on that one, I haven't been able to go on missions in ages. I felt heaps rusty on my last one and need to shake the cobwebs off.

 **o-0-o**

The inaugural match of the tournament kicked off with Iron Country winning a closely fought game, much to the delight of the fans at the stadium. The Fire Daimyo and his entourage were quite merry after having drunk the local delicacy called vodka... and a rather large amount at that.

The party were making their way back to their hotel, opting to have dinner rather than see the next game which was said to be not as exciting.

Hidden in the shadows, Shino became aware of someone who shouldn't be here. His kikaichu beetles could sense a foul chakra. "Daimyo-sama. Please continue, there is something that I need to attend to." Shino clearly said to which there was a slight narrowing of the eyes and a nod.

Whilst he was a happy go lucky man, similar to Naruto, he had been around ninjas for long enough to pick up on a few things. When a ninja said there was something that they needed to take care of, what they really meant was that something bad was about to happen.

The Aburame clan heir made a quick detour and rounded the corner to, whilst still hiding, to find a man with the sound village symbol, entering the kitchen.

 _Sound ninja. They must be trying to poison our food supply._ In addition to this, due to being a bit closer, he had a better reading of the chakra coming from this man. _This must be that cursed seal chakra that Neji and Naruto fought against on the Sasuke Retrieval Mission._

Wordlessly, Shino sent a swarm of bugs into the kitchen, much to the surprise of the unsuspecting sound shinobi. Within seconds, he collapsed to the floor. All of his charka had been drained in a short space of time.

Quietly, Shino followed the man into the kitchen, collected the man over his shoulder and vanished in a shunshin.

"I'm too old for this shit." One of the civilian staff working in the kitchen muttered although he then continued to do his job. Damn those crazy ninjas. He would never get used to them.

 **o-0-o**

Without warning, the door opened up and Naruto and Ino both immediately prepared for a fight. That was until Ino put her hand on Naruto's forearm. The boy was confused for a second and then watched as Ino relaxed her posture.

A few seconds later and the Aburame clan heir walked into the room although he was not alone. On his shoulder was a rather unconscious man. Ino and Naruto wanted answers.

"What's up and who is he?" Naruto was the first to speak up.

"Sound ninja. I found him walking into the kitchen which is prepairing the food for the Daimyo, his entourage and the playing team." Shino only spoke what was necessary. "I also believe he has a curse mark on his forearm but you will be a better judge of that since you went on that mission and I did not."

 _Guess he's still salty about that._

Shino dumped the body onto the carpet and Naruto noticed the exposed forearm. "Yeah, that's definitely a cursed seal. I've seen a couple and they all look different although this one looks to be in the same family." Naruto then looked up at Shino.

"Does this mean that Orochimaru is here?" Ino panicked. It seemed as if anything that could go wrong, did.

"I'm not sure yet." Was all that Shino could say. It was the best that they could hope for.

"We need to find out more information. I have drained him of his chakra."

"Right." Ino didn't need to be told twice what to do. The fact that they were interrogating a foreign shinobi on soil that neither of them lived in. This was serious business but with a mission like this, you couldn't take any chances.

Wars had been started for less.

The need for information outweighed that though as they simply couldn't risk the daimyo getting hurt

After propping the body up, Shino tied the man down and Ino went through handgns that she was very familiar with and used her family's famous jutsu, delving into the mind of the sound ninja.

 **o-0-o**

The group stages were finally over. When Neji came back from his shift, Naruto and Ino took over for Tenten and himself. There, Shino informed the team leader all about what had happened and the actions that they had taken.

Neji had immediately informed the daimyo who sort another kitchen to prepare the food. The man was greatful for the action taken and pleased with how efficently it was all handled.

Thankfully for the konoha ninjas, they found out that Orochimaru wasn't here. They were just here make sure that their team got the best result.

A sigh of relief was shared between every member of the group. The last thing they wanted to deal with was to deal with Orochimaru and the Akatsuki on the same mission.

At least there was some positive news going around though. Naruto, in the first week of the three event had manage to already break a profit on his betting. All the money that he made though was reinvested into more bets. This time though, much larger stakes on the line. $1500 had turned into $3750.

The others thought that he was crazy for not cashing out. One thousand profit happened to be a lot of money it was risky leaving it out there. They did acknowledge however that naruto was good at this and somehow, someway, despite not knowing anything about the sport, he was making money.

Ino on the other hand who had taken her gambling into her own hands, not believing Naruto had not been so lucky. All of the bets that she had placed, which totalled $50 had lost.

Tenten was thanking Naruto quite a lot. Sure, all of the bets that she placed lost but due to the one's Naruto placed for her, she had broken even and had even managed to make a tiny little profit.

Neither Neji or Shino cared all that much to be honest.

Naruto and Neji had just finished their shift at the stadium, guarding the daimyo and we heading back to the hotel to swap over shifts with Ino and Shino. Tenten was busy guarding the players.

As they exited the arena, Neji couldn't but mutter "Kumo shinobi..." He had turned on his byakugan and noticed the people.

"What did you say, a woman?" nearby questioned. The two Konoha shinobi both turned around and saw three Kumo shinobi..

Naruto groaned and new that this wasn't going to down well. There in front of him was a man with silver hair, who he assumed was their leader, a short haired wannabe Tsunade and Karui.

"This is not going to down well." Naruto sighed under his breath.

"I just find it funny how you haven't already tried to attack me and steal my byakugan yet." Naruto and the rest of his team were under no illusion that if their team leader wanted, he could be quite passive aggressive.

"What's that supposed to mean!? As if we would do something like this." Karui threw back, annoyed at the accusation made

"Karui, stop." The short haired wannabe Tsunade stated in a firm tone. She obviously knew what was being referred to.

"Neji." Gone was was the happy go lucky blonde. In it's place was a serious tone of voice that was rarely seen. It wasn't cold but it was precise. "Make sure you remember where we are and who you are dealing with. We don't want to cause an international event. I know what you are going through more than you can imagine when it comes to family members being kidnapped by kumogakure to be used as breeding stock and impregnated for military gain.

Don't let your emotions cloud your judgement." Naruto said in a clear but firm tone of voice that none

"You're lying _genin-san._ Unless you actually have proof of your claim, I'd heavily suggest not slandering our village because if you do, we'll beat you up." Karui was proud of her village and didn't like people insulting it. What was worse was the fact that she had slept with one of said people which was making her guilt go through the roof.

"Karui. Stop talking." It was the first time that the black skinned man spoke. It sounded like he was bored but both Naruto and Neji could tell that he was anything but given the way that he stared at the two teenagers in front of him.

"Regardless of what happened in the past, it should be left there. What happened to your clan."

At this point Neji cut Darui off. "What happeend to my father." Both the eyes of Samui and Darui widened as they realised why the teenager in front of them was so aggressive towards them.

"What happened to your clan was unfortunate. However, it's best that you focus not on the past but the present." It was said in a lazy drall that made Neji narrow his eyes ever so slightly.

"We're leaving but before we go, what is your last name kid?" The jonin from kumo questioned as he pointed his finger at Naruto.

"That's not really any of your business." The blonde replied with a smug smirk lining his face. Both Neji and naruto turned around headed back to their hotel. Tension was thick in the air and it could be cut with a knife.

For a few seconds, Darui's eye narrowed it's gaze directly at the blonde. _The only othr time we attempted to capture someone was Kushina Uzumaki. She was reported to be close to the Yondaime Hokage. Given his yellow hair, that could be the son of the yellow flash._

"Now Karui, will you please explain how you know that the guy with the blonde hair is a genin?" Samui called out to which the team leader turned his gaze to the red headed girl whos face was slowly starting to get a bit of colour on her cheeks.

"Well, you see... the thing is..." And so karui was forced to exlpain how she met Naruto on a mission one year ago and had sex with him. She conveniently left out the fact that she slept with him a few days ago also.

Little did anyone realise was that there was a ninja from the land of earth who was watching this intently. Very intently.

 **o-0-o**

"Come onnnn Kakazu! Just let me kill some of them. Jashin-sama is not pleased at this blatant show of disrespect. Let me kill some people you fucking heretic.

"For the millionth time Hidan. NO!" The only reason he hadn't separated Hidan's head from his shoulders was that would just make more work for him and it wouldn't stop Hidan's incessant shouting. That and he was in a very happy mood. He had made a lot of money over the past week or so and he planned on making more.

 **o-0-o**

$3750 quickly turned into $10,000 and the money was no longer a something that the rest of Team Neji could ignore. All of them were jealous of the fact that Naruto was making so much money.

Who knew that Naruto would be right in the sense that the guy with hair that looked like it was made from spaghetti hair would make it past the group stages and score a goal in the first round after?

Not they would tell the blonde that they were jealous of what seemed to be sheer dumb luck. Naruto had enough confidence. He didn't need for that to turn into smugness with him then telling everyone 'I told you so."

Naruto and Ino both found themselves alone in the hotel and Ino was bored. She wasn't used to a mission with downtime like this. It was a month-long mission and 2 weeks had passed.

"Hey Naruto!" She called out which got the blonde's attention. He turned around with a curious look on his face.

"What's up Ino?"

"You know, I never really found out how strong you got on your training trip." The girl said in an attempt to start up a conversation.

"Well that's because I never told anyone. Isn't that the point of being a ninja?" A smartass comment came back.

Ino rolled her eyes. "Well yeah, but it's okay to tell teammates dummy. How else are we supposed to work well as a team if we have no idea what you can do?"

 _She's not wrong._ Naruto thought to himself as he looked at Ino and couldn't help but notice what she was wearing.

She was wearing a orange top with one shoulder showing, the sleeve down around her upper shoulder. A white bra strap was visible and she was wearing a pair of tight, white denim pants. Her hair was in a messy bun on top of her head

 _Damn she's hot._

"Well I improved my taijutsu a fair bit, same with genjutsu although I am nowhere near Kurenai's level. The area that I improved the most though was my ninjutsu." _Figures since he is a walking chakra battery._

"Oh cool, what area of ninjutsu?" Ino said, leaning forward. She didn't mean for a tiny bit of cleavage to be on display. She was just simply interested in learning more about Naruto.

"Well I learnt an element. I reckon I'm pretty close to mastering it." Ino took this at face value and hoped she could see it. She didn't get to see too many shinobi with a high level of skill in an element.

"Nice work! Which one?" Although she was more than just a rookie chunin, she had yet to learn any ninjutsu from an element. She hoped that she could get some tips since as a Yamanaka, it was fairly common for her family to have raiton affinities.

"Lightning!" Naruto was proud to talk about the accomplishments he had made over the past few years. He worked bloody hard for them.

"That's great!" When you keep getting complements from someone, you tend to like the person that they are coming from. "Do you think you could teach me some?" Ino hoped she got a positive answer as her skillset couldn't definitely be improved, especially combat wise.

Naruto put his hand to his cheek and looked up at the ceiling and thought for a moment. "Nah, I won't teach you lightning element." He had to savour the moment where her face changed into a saddened expression. Naruto was being a bastard and he knew it. "I've got a better a idea, I've got a jutsu that I think will be better for you."

Ino had her hands on her hips, waiting to see what was so much better than learning an element. "This is a jutsu which you can use as both offensive, defensive and anywhere else in between. Plus it will give you a lot more variety when it comes to fashion." The last line that Naruto said through the poor blonde woman for a loop. _How is a ninjutsu going to help me with fashion?_

"Go on, do tell how this will help my fashion options." The drawl in which she spoke eluded to her not really taking Naruto seriously.

He knew that this was going to happen. People still saw him as the hyperactive knucklehead ninja. They still saw him as that kid. The only way he was going to be able to get others to see differently was by showing, rather than telling.

Quickly, Naruto made a hand seal and started channelling chakra.

To Ino's amazement, Naruto's hair grew exponentially from the follicles. Ino was in so much surprise that she didn't even notice when it wrapped around her waist and pulled her firmly against Naruto's chest. Only upon contact did she notice the lack of proximity between the two of them. Neither noticed the small blush on her face.

"See, pretty cool huh?" Naruto questioned with a small smile on his face. Ino didn't trust herself to speak so she settled for nodding. "It's also got some other users" Naruto then channelled chakra, his hair creating a shroud around them, completely isolating them from the outside world. "Feel it, it's as tough as steel."

Ino did just that as she ran her hand over the hair and couldn't help but marvel at what could be done with one's own hair. She'd seen Choji use it for his jutsu and she even had a hair based jutsu back in the day but she had never seen it done quite like this. This was far more versatile and dangerous just like Naruto said. "I can even use it like senbon needles.

"Can you please teach me this?" Ino questioned with glee in her eyes. She was going through all of the possible things she could do with this and the possibilities in her eyes were nearly endless.

"No worries dattebayo. I don't really use it but Jiraiya-sensei wanted to teach me all of his skills. I'm happy to help out friends." Naruto released the jutsu and his hair returned to its normal length

"Thank you Naruto-kun." It was the first time Ino had been a benefactor of Naruto's kind personality. _He didn't have to teach me this and he hasn't asked for anything in return._

Naruto never really saw the point of learning ninjutsu about your hair but at this moment, he definitely thanked Jiraiya. It gave him an in and he was going to make the most of it.

 **o-0-o**

The quarter final match between Earth Country and Fire Country just began and the daimyo's had a bright idea to share a box together so that they could share banter and then brag when one of the team's won.

Naruto and Tenten and Shino who were all in the private box with the daimyo all thought that this was a terrible idea. Naruto even tried to use his favour with the 'boss-man' but it was for naught. The daimyo swatted Naruto away saying that he had full confidence in his abilities.

 _That's not what I am worried about. It's Iwa shinobi seeing my and connecting my blonde hair to my father._

"Come on Fire!" Tenten cheered, proud to see her country and also to a lesser extent, the civilians that she had been protecting for the past two weeks.

"As if you fire trash have a chance of winning against the might of Earth!" One of the chunin on the other side of the box heatedly replied with anger evident on their face. As much as Naruto wanted to rise to the bait, shit stir the pot and watch chaos unfold, he knew that that was not a good idea. Instead, he kept his focus on the match and luckily for the blonde haired shinobi, he had a bet to win.

This was one of the riskier bets where Fire Country would win, however 2 goals would be scored by Earth country in the second half. If it was successful, it was going to turn $13,000 into $16,500

Whilst this was happening, Kurotsuchi couldn't help but stare at the vibrant blonde hair with narrowed eyes. Ever since she had felt the decimation of the yellow flash on her family, she had made it her mission to find out everything she could about Konoha and how to enact revege.

Blonde hair like his was not common at all. The Yamanaka clan were a much paler blonde and outside of that, there was no one noteworthy with blonde hair in Konoha. She couldn't quite get a good view of his face as she could only see the side profile however she was going to keep watch.

"Yess! Suck on that you Konoha scum." One of the Iwa shinobi shouted as he watched his team score a goal. In the first half.

The entire Konoha squad ignored the not so subtle jab and focused on the match in front of them although they clenched their fists. Naruto especially so as that goal just made his bet that much harder.

"Seems like we are going to win." The earth daimyo said with a smug smirk on his face. The fire daimyo rolled his eyes.

"There is still sixty minutes to go." Was the astute reply.

Indeed there was and it was only five minutes later that the reply came from fire country. "Yatta!" Naruto called out as he pumped his hand in the air. The score was now 1-1 leading up to half time.

"That shouldn't have been a goal! Obviously Konoha are rigging this and have paid the referee." Came an irate reply from one of the disgruntled Iwa ninjas.

"The game is not over yet." Seemingly oblivious to the comments made by the ninja, the Fire daimyo shot back at the Earth country daimyo. Said man gritted his teeth and clenched the beer in his hand.

Half time came shortly after and there was a break of 15 minutes. Tension was filled to the brim at this time. Both ninja parties broke off into their separate groups. The earth daimyo requesting another beer; the fire daimyo preferring sake.

The game shortly resumed with fire country taking the lead for the first time in the game. This time the earth ninjas couldn't complain about the goal as it was a piece of sublime skill rather than a questionable refereeing decision.

It was a close affair that was hotly contested, Iwa hitting back not too long after, levelling the score at 2-2. Tenten wasn't happy at all as in the 80th minute of the game, Iwa clenched another goal to take the lead.

"Yes! Earth country showing their might and showing that they are the strongest village." Kurotsuchi proclaimed to the cheers of her teammates and more importantly in her eyes, the daimyo who happened to be on his fifth beer of the match.

"There is still time left in the game for a comeback because I am hopeful that you can read it is only the 80th minute." Shino calmly replied. Grudges were something that shino happened to be very good at holding and one had been developing over the course of the match due to what he considered incessant babbling from the Iwa shinobi.

There was only one goal difference and Iwa had scored two goals in the second half. Naruto's bet was in with a real shot.

As much as Shino mentioned there being 10 minutes left, time was dwindling and Earth Country was doing everything in their power to waste as much time as possible.

88 minutes had passed. "Guess you're going to going home early." The earth daimyo smirked after taking a swig of his beer. There were only two minutes left to go and there was little sign that despite all the effort, Fire Country wasn't going to score.

That smirk was wiped off as in the first minute of extra time, the captain for the team, the 'Hurricane' scored a last ditch header to clutch the game to go into overtime.

Naruto jumped up in joy. "Come on!" he shouted. Despite the fact that he normally didn't give a shit about this sport normally, when nationalism was involved he suddenly had a lot more incentive to care about the sport; that and the fact that he had several thousand dollars on the line.

Despair crossed the face of the two Iwa chunin before rage settled on their face. They were so close to winning. The earth daimyo looked over to his counterpart who tried hard but was unable to hide the smirk that was on his face.

"There's still overtime you tree hugging cunt." The Earth Daimyo called out and regretted the words coming out of his mouth. A few beers beforehand and he wouldn't have said it. Alcohol allowed many questionable things to happen.

Everyone went quiet as they waited with baited breath to see what the Fire Daimyo was going to do after being insulted like that. He stared long and hard before turning his attention back to the game.

"Oh look, it's not just the ninjas of Fire Country that end wars but also their daimyo. Funny that, you would think that they would have learnt after the last one." Naruto said out loud; Purposefully loud enough that everyone could hear it.

One of the chunin of Iwa, the same one who had noticed the confrontation from Naruto, Neji and the Kumo ninja spoke up. Passion resonated through the man as he was someone who had lost family at the hands of Konoha. "Shut the fuck up you pathetic genin trash. If you're lucky, you may die quickly instead of being receiving a slow and painful death."

This was the first time that Naruto gave any of those residing from Iwagakure and Earth Country to a lesser degree any attention. "No need to get salty. Why you haf to be mad, iz only game." A clueless expression formed on the face of Naruto although it was done fairly bad, to the point where everyone could tell that it was fake.

Said Iwa ninja clenched his fist so hard that the skin broke and blood started seeping out. How he wanted to wipe that smug, condescending and patronizing look off the blonde haired brat's face.

Kurotsuchi cooly stood in front of her subordinate and held her hand out in front of him to prevent him from moving any closer. With barely restrained anger, the leader of the team looked directly into the eyes of Naruto and it was as she saw a ghost of the past loom over his head.

Going off the intel that she was just provided though, she was confident that she could win if anything happened. "Konoha trash, I suggest you control your bootleg, wannabe fourth Hokage lookalike at bay or we will be forced to intervene for the honour of Iwa." When the black haired woman said this, the earth daimyo who had just finished a glass of whiskey looked over at Naruto and stumbled back in his seat.

 _That boy, he looks exactly like the fucking Yellow Flash._

Both Naruto and the fire daimyo picked up on this and shared a look with one another and the boss man gave a small nod which Naruto then returned. Shino who was focused on the jonin in front of him who he knew as the granddaughter of the current Tsuchikage did not see this. "The appearance of one of my team members is none of your concern, why do you ask? Because you should be aware that if you do anything, you will have an army of samurai at your doorstep since we are all in a foreign country, something you would be best served remembering." The Aburame clan heir jumped into the conversation with a confident, yet monotone voice.

"Naruto, do not engage with any further conversations with Iwa ninjas." Whilst it was said in the same tone of voice as before, Naruto knew Shino well enough that he was slightly chuckling at how he managed to get under their skin.

"Oi look, the game is just about to start up again." Tenten called out, hoping to diffuse the tension and restore focus to what they were hear for. All eyeballs turned around and focused on the game, that much more pressure riding on it, something that the civilian players were unaware of.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man. When time is calling for a hero to be made, heroes either step up or step aside. The star player known as the 'Hurrikane' stepped up and latched onto the end of a cross from his teammate and headed the ball into the back of the net. The score was 4-3 to Fire Country.

"Yes!" Tenten shouted, as she jumped up into the air, jubilation coursing through her body at the outcome.

Naruto was cheering internally however he was listening to the orders of his second in command for when Neji was away.

"Nooo!" The earth daimyo shouted as he clenched the whiskey in his hand. As much as the Fire Daimyo waned to brag, he didn't want to start an international war because he knew his counterpart was fairly drunk at the moment.

Shortly thereafter the match ended and the Fire daimyo and his entourage were quickly escorted out of the building by Shino and the team.

As the elder Daimyo watched the others leave, he had a glare on his face. "Kurotsuchi. Come here." The man ordered to which the kunoichi did just that. "After the exams are over…" As she listened to the man, she couldn't help but grin a savagely.

 **o-0-o**

The quarter finals were as far as Fire country went as they lost in the semi-finals to that guy with the dangerous name hazard or something. _Ahh well, I got my money, that's all I really care about. That and avoiding an international incident._ Naruto thought to himself as the final match of the tournament, the final had concluded the night before. Neji and his team spent the night guarding the daimyo and rotating so they all got some semblance of sleep.

Overall the month long mission had been completed without any major catastrophes although there were a few close encounters. All the blonde genin had to do now was go and collect his winnings from all the bets.

It tallied up to just under $25,000 which, when starting from only $1000, was a significant amount of money. This was to the point where Ino had even been asking as nicely as she could, and by that was done through flirting for Naruto to get her that dress she wanted, telling him she would show it off to him when they got back.

Naruto stood firm however and only agreed shout the group dinner when they got back to Konoha.

Much to the lamentation of the owner of the betting shop, Naruto went into the store, showed his proof and collected his winnings. Due to it being from a civilian and not a shinobi, it was all in cash on display, daring anyone to rob Naruto.

A man who just walked into the room behind Naruto saw this and watched Naruto quickly deposit the money into a storage scroll before sealing it away.

Time slowed down as Naruto turned the corner. Eyes flung wide open as he saw the familiar cloak of the Akatsuki in front of him. He couldn't quite picture the tanned skin, green eyes and silver headgear though.

Initially, the man in the robe didn't notice who Naruto was as the genin from Konoha quickly walked past him. Kakazu just saw the opportunity to steal a small fortune from a stupid kid.

 _Blonde hair, blue eyes and whisker marks! That's the Kyubi jinchuuriki!_

Kakazu grinned under his mask. Today was going to be a good day for the money hungry mercenary.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **Hey, hope you like this chapter. Sorry if you expected action to happen in this chapter. It will happen in the next one i can promise you! You will get to see more of what this Naruto can do.**

 **As always, if you have any constructive criticism, ideas for jutsu, pairings or even potential plots that you don't really want to write yourself, please leave a review and I will see if it fits the direction of where I want this story to go.**


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